Research and Reflection

Blog Research and Reflection

            After writing about twenty blogs which mainly target at mechanical engineering field, I feel like I have found a lot of information that I haven’t noticed before or I didn’t get the time to look for it, this blog project offers me a great opportunity on researching for my field and yet I still think I have a lot of things to know and to share with all mechanical engineers or who wants to get into the field. This blog is the conclusion for all which including research focus and reflection focus as my final blog.

            My blog involves many aspects such as I posts a lot of interesting projects made by college students, interesting videos and even films. However, throughout all my free post blogs, I have found that the biggest aspect I mainly target is the analysis of employment outlook for mechanical engineers. In many blogs, I have introduced the element of mechanical engineering and what can mechanical engineering do? And the answers for these two big questions I apart them into two parts, the first one is mechanical design and another one is working on real machines.

            For mechanical designing, the main job is to design the specific structures and draw pictures for appearance, in my blog, I give a brief introduction for Auto CAD and give the trick on how to do a car appearance by hand-only drawing, and after research I think mechanical designing is the easier and safer job for mechanical engineer, but you make less money than those real workers under lower risk; another one I am going to talk about is the real mechanical workers who actually produce products or repair things by using those big heavy machines, in my blogs, I show some examples of heavy machines even factories, though it is heavy work and risky, you can make more money. I also mention the choices and responsibility for mechanical engineers, so I think my main research is for employment and how can one be a good mechanical engineering.

            Honestly, I first treated this blog project as a simple assignment which worth 200 pts. I am not even sure I am going to take mechanical engineering as my final major since the GPA requirement is ridiculously high and the lessons are difficult as same ridiculous. But, when I got time to research fun stuffs or useful information about mechanical engineering, I started to change my mind, now I think mechanical engineer is not that boring, like we can build robots or models based on our knowledge and besides, we do not need to worry about our future jobs because since the major is hot, mechanical engineers do not need to concern about future jobs and besides it is difficult, so there won’t be many people can graduate. In one word, if I can graduate from mechanical engineer, I will have a great job with high salary and there won’t be many people compete with me.

            I also think that being a mechanical engineer is pretty cool because if you look through my blog, you will find that mechanical engineer is extremely skillful, mechanical engineers not only can draw structures and build cars, ships and airplanes, but also mechanical engineers can build killing weapons and I think this attracts men a lot. Personally, I am a military fan and maybe if there is a chance, I shall turn my major into weapon engineer, just like we change our talents for our video games character. And weapon engineers occurred long time ago around the world. So basically, my reflection is that mechanical engineer is a good career to be and mechanical engineers have a lot of spaces to develop for themselves.

Week 10 Prompt Post: Remix Knowledge

For this week’s prompt post, we are supposed to find a remix project for our fields. I find a very interesting video for engineering remix, the video is all about hand-drawings and it explains what is engineer specifically and they are really fun drawings.

            I am really shocked when I see the extremely fast drawings, the author draw a lot of pictures of an engineer’s daily life first, like an engineer gets up and brushes his teeth, and play angry birds in a bus. Then, the author introduces different kinds of engineers like mechanical engineer, mining engineer and chemical engineer, etc. The author also introduces engineers can make video games and build houses.

            Although the tone for background introduction is non-emotion, it deliveries its humor successfully. Like the author draws the sad face when the character in his drawings. It is very attractive because he draws those pictures well and creative. Anyway, it is a good remix and I suggest you to watch it.

 

Citation

UoN FEBE, . What is Engineering?. 2013. Photograph. Youtube, Newcastle. Web. 31 Mar 2014. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bipTWWHya8A>.

Week 10 Free Post: Mechanical Engineers Should Have Responsibility, Feel Sorry to MH 370

     

      My mood is very heavy when I am writing this blog for this week’s free post. When I wake up today and watched morning news, the airplane MH370 crashed has been confirmed and there is no one survival! I feel so sorry to the tragedy, let’s stand up, take off our hats and offer a moment of silence for the dead.

       I am not going to talk about who is the true one should take responsible for this tragedy because It doesn’t relate to mechanical engineer and I don’t really have mood to talk about this, it is about 239 lives and 154 people are Chinese, they are dead for no reason but an airplane crush. They are innocent people who don’t need to pay their lives for such this tragedy.

Picture made by Luke Villapaz

       Well, as the blog I posted for engineering code of ethics, mechanical engineers should have responsibility because everything we have made and repaired are related to human lives. As we know, before a plane takes off, at least a group of mechanical engineers should check whether there is something going wrong with the plane itself and fuel or not, please always take your responsibility with you because it is all about human lives and their family’s happiness. Like in MH370, I have heard that there is a man who wants to return to home because he made some money and take away pressure of his family; many people just try to reunion with their families and someone just want to take a break, but the plane crash takes away their lives, also it takes away their family’s hope and happiness.  

       Every mechanical engineers, please remember that although professionalism is important to us, we can never lose our responsibility, if we don’t want to see the innocent people die for stupid plane crash; if we don’t want to see the sad faces, take our responsibility with us!

 

Citation

Luke villapaz, . Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370: Prayers Continue As Search And Rescue Teams Scour The Globe For Missing Airliner [PHOTOS]. 2014. Photograph. ibtimesWeb. 25 Mar 2014. <http://s1.ibtimes.com/sites/www.ibtimes.com/files/styles/picture_this/public/2014/03/19/malaysia-mh370-artwork-1.jpg>.

 

Week 9 Prompt Post: Recognizing Significance----The Industrial Revolution

          This week’s prompt post is recognizing significance for my field which is mechanical engineering. Well, I can’t think any ideas better than Industrial Revolution, it is the really significance for mechanical engineering, because the Industrial Revolution brings machines instead of manpower.

Paiting For Industrial Revolution

           The Industrial Revolution took place in 18^th century in Britain, when handicraft production cannot meet the demand of the market, British wanted to make a change to manpower mood, here we go it is the reason of why the Industrial Revolution happened. When Watt invented steam machines, British didn’t need to build their factories near to streams or rivers, and it didn’t requires manpower during the process of production, it released workers from heavily hand work and at that time, people in Britain produced things by machines.

            Moreover, the Industrial Revolution divides the class, since the Industrial Revolution spread to America in 19^th century, it separate classes into the bourgeoisie and the working class which we live the same nowadays. So the industrial revolution is not only significance for my field, but also it influences the whole world.

            If I explain how the significance of the work done in my discipline, I would like to say according to the article I found is that before the Industrial Revolution began, people used carriages to transport stuffs and it was slow, when the Industrial Revolution began with steam machines, people started to use vehicles to transport stuffs and after some times, railroad and waterway transport showed up, as after more times, airplane transport showed up. Well, when I graduate from mechanical engineer, I probably going to build cars or designing cars, so the Industrial Revolution does affect my discipline.

 

CITATION

1. appledj5845, . 工业革命时期的背景油画. 2014. Photograph. Baidu ImageWeb. 25 Mar 2014. <http://baike.baidu.com/picview/8751/5044850/0/ae10edde6b94126694ee37eb.html

2. "Industrial Revolution." Follow HIstory. n. page. Web. 25 Mar. 2014. <http://www.history.com/topics/industrial-revolution>.

           

Week 9 Free Post: Mechanical Engineering and Military Weapon

      Mechanical engineer is not only target to design auto and use heavy machines to produce products, but also mechanical engineer closely relates to military weapon. From the old ancient China to nowadays advanced American technical weapon, mechanical engineers make big contribution to military.





Stone Thrower in Video Game

Stone Thorwer in Ancient China.

Apart from the simple ladder, the medieval rewards the most commonly used equipment including stone thrower, cars and big-hit shield. Here I am going to talk about the stone thrower. If you look at the pictures which I post above, you will basically know the appearance of the stone thrower, they always has solid chassis so that they can afford the weight of the above part and big stones, a long arm and a big spoon are also required, so that soldiers can throw the stone further, because according to the Leverage Theory, the longer the arm is, the power used by soldiers the less. The stone throwers was first shown in the end of Han dynasty, when Cao, Sun, Liu three kingdoms want to control the whole China, those talented ancient mechanical engineers create stone throwers to destroy the high wall which is also made in stone.

Back to modern society, the high advanced technical weapon I am going to introduce here is MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems). MEMS is a precision device technology that integrates mechanical elements, sensors, actuators, and electronics on a common silicon substrate through micro fabrication technology. MEMS can help military to find those invisible units which hide themselves by decreasing its area or painting special material outside. In modern war, find your enemy quickly means you can target them easily.

 

 

Citation

1.际超, 李. "机械工程技术与武器装备的发展." 信息系统与管理学院. (2009): n. page. Web. 25 Mar. 2014. http://wenku.baidu.com/link?url=d4-QJkKiVV0ikHCjUQQwVzr_KhjXj-PzvWnDICOuUDyXrn55wkCuMEkqi7AYqLA0K8ZvDCBmog9iDJrIjtvIj_jN5mmff1akHblJhDR6jQ3.

2. "Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS)." EngineersGarage. (2010): n. page. Web. 25 Mar. 2014. http://www.engineersgarage.com/articles/mems-technology.  

 



Week 8 Free Post : brief introduction of CAD

          

      I don’t get an interesting topic to talk about for this week’s free post and I don’t find interesting video to share with neither from youtube or Chinese website. So as a mechanical engineer, I plan to introduce you guys an engineering tool to you guys, which is Computer Aided Design, we usually call it CAD.

       CAD was born in the 1960s, is an interactive graphics MIT research projects proposed, and because of the hardware is expensive, only the U.S. General Motors Corporation and American Airlines Boeing using it for self-developed interactive mapping system. When PC becomes common in twentieth, CAD was used in factory and engineering field. CAD may be used to design curves and figures in two-dimensional space; or curves, surfaces, and solids in three-dimensional space, so for those people who really want to be good engineers, they must use CAD as good as they use their pencil, because in my opinion, CAD is the third hand for every engineers.
        Unfortunately, if we want to use CAD well, we must remember the keys in CAD and there are a lot, like Ctrl+B is to control under a special mood and Ctrl+P is to print current image you make and Ctrl+J is to repeat your last action, etc. Those knowledge is useful but also complex. Also, the keys from F1 to F12 has their own functions. Learn it if you are interested in it. Here is the link
 

http://bestcadtips.com/the-power-of-the-function-keys-in-autocad-2/

Week 8 Prompt Post: Prcticing Your Knowledge, hand-on learning

My major is mechanical engineer and there two main jobs relate to my field which are using machines to produce products in factory like a mechanical engineer; another one is to design pictures and structures for like jet engines and appearance of autos. For me, I think I am more prefer to design stuffs in office because I think it is risky to use the machines by my own, because I have seen and heard some mechanical engineers got bad injured during the process of using those heavy machines.

       Because of I am still not get into Mechanical Engineer College yet, so I just ask my friends who have already in the college about the design things. And the answer I get is very similar to what was I think. For example, if I want to design a auto, I need to draw the appearance of the auto and give approximately data first, normally, mechanical engineers use professional software to design, but I don’t know which is the one I supposed to use, so I just do a hand-draw picture here to finish the hand-on learning subject, don’t laugh at me :)

       

There are some techniques to draw a designing picture for an auto. My engineer friend tells me that if you want to draw an auto design, the priority is to begin with two wheels, so you can handle the main position of the auto. Start with wheel and then the windows, so you can know how high the vehicle is. The rest things are pretty simple, but this is the only hand-learning drawing, don’ t take is seriously, if you see the professional software one day, the things will be different to today the bad drawing u see. Once again, hope you enjoy.