CAD users: How old are you? 3

[toffeet]

http://www.cadalyst.com/cadalyst

Too those of you who have already taken the poll. Is there a simple explanation for the big differences between age groups? A big surprise to me was the 40-49 group, compared to the 30-39 and 50-59 groups.

I am in the 30-39 group and can not imagine an engineering world without the use of CAD. Or are there people who feel different about CAD?

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[CorBlimeyLimey]

David Foot's book "Boom, Bust, Echo" is an excellent reference for demographics such as this.

50-59 = Baby Boomers = 1946 > 1964
40-49 = Gen-X
30-39 = Echo Boomers or Gen-Y

In simplistic terms ... the Baby Boomers are the prolific post WW2 generation. They dominate the workforce and basically held/hold most of the better paying jobs ... leaving slim pickings for Gen-X. The Echo Boomers (also prolific being the offspring of the more affluent Baby Boomers) are/were able to get better education & therefor better jobs ... again leaving slim pickings for the following generation.

The expected job vacuum caused by retiring boomers isn't happening. Worse, many jobs seemed to have skipped Generation Xers, instead going to boomers' kids.

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[MikeHalloran]

The 30-39 group are doing CAD as part of their development as engineers.

The 40-49 group are working as senior engineers, and have lackeys do the CAD.

At age 50, their employers will suffer unfortunate market setbacks, and "so sorry, not because of your age", and certainly not because of the cost of providing health benefits, their employment as engineers will cease.

They will become CAD lackeys, "part time", with long hours, and no benefits.





Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[JAE]

I'm in the "older" group. I can do CADD without any problem. Learned it real fast.

I have noted, however, that using CADD, in my opinion, stunts the development of engineers to a degree. Those that come into the work force using CADD (and design software) do not seem to "get into" the design and understand their design as well as my peers did when I was coming into the work force.

Perhaps I'm thinking of the "good old days", but I notice it even within myself - that there is a tendency to glaze over things when they are all on the screen, with multi-colored straight lines. You have to force your mind to get into the details when using computers.

Probably opening up a storm of worms-from-a can here.

 

[toffeet]

And what a big can that is.

I agree with JAE, only to a certain extend off course. Somedays, looking at a computer screen for 10 hours, does make my mind feel numb.

Then again, the new generation 3D design software is really amazing. It is no longer a screen with multi-colored straight lines. That been said, it still remains only a tool and is no substitute for creativity and common sence.

The problem with the younger generation may not be the CAD software but the exposure they had as kids. Just take Lego for example. When I was a kid (not that very long ago) it was plain square boring plastic blocks. I had to use my imagination to make something out of it. With the same blocks I could build anything from a ship to a truck to a space craft. Modern Lego is almost pre-assembled, where is the fun in that? My mother only had to buy me one Lego set. My sister-in-law has to buy her son a new set every time he gets bored with the previous one. Quite a need marketing strategy. $$$$$$

I am going off the topic here. Just some thoughts maybe for a later topic.

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[EddyC]

Most of the CAD proficient engineers where I work prefer to do their own CAD, rather than give it out to drafters. The older engineers make very detailed sketches that are given to the drafters to CAD duplicate. The problem we have is that our drafters are of poor quality. Like engineers, there seems to be no agreed upon process that qualifes someone as a drafter. It also doesn't help that we are forced to use "no-name" 17" monitors, basically making the CAD process very inefficient.

 

[ScottyUK]

I'm one of the Echo Boomers - a new term for me - and I'm probably the only qualified engineer in our company who is also a reasonably competent AutoCAD user. I'm not as quick as the guys from the drawing office who use it all day, but they're snowed under with work so I do my drawings myself rather than wait for an indeterminate period until they get a chance to do it for me. I did study technical drawing for a little while at school, so I can tell the difference between 1st angle and 3rd angle projection unlike most of my colleagues, and I'm a pain in the ass (so I'm told) for getting all the detail right. It's very rare that a drawing I receive for approval gets signed straight off - it usually goes back covered in red pen a few times first.

I've gotten round the problem EddyC mentions with monitors - one of the spare 22" CRTs from our Foxboro distributed control system got mysteriously redirected onto my desk. I was sick of going home with sore eyes and a headache from working on one of the standard 17" types, so the objectors were told to get stuffed. It makes a HUGE difference when working on densely packed electrical drawings, and I haven't had any eyestrain problems since. An A3 drawing is virtually life-size on screen at 1600x1200.

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I don't suffer from insanity. I enjoy it...

 

[Jabberwocky]

Don't harsh on the LEGO toffeet! They have both kinds of sets now, some that are practically action figures and some that are much more general blocks.

I'd thought I'd throw in my two cents from the unnamed generation (<30). I'm an engineer in a department of 4 and do pretty much all my own CAD. I must say I was impressed to see the large spike in the 50+ range. Also I cannot imagine how such complicated things were designed before modern CAD. I guess I can but it involves a lot more man-hours than I care to think about.

Another thing to note is that the demographics may be skewed by the website itself - I, at least, had never heard of it until this post.

 

[Guest0527211403]

Here's another voice from the unnamed generation (I'm 24). I've been reffered to as part of the "nintendo generation", which is fine, because using Pro/E is not too far off from playing a video game for me, only the stakes are higher.

As an EIT, most of what I do right now is CAD work for the senior engineers. Most of them have been designing wind tunnels for 40+ years and are very proficient AutoCAD users.

Most of our work now, however, is migrating towards Pro/E for CAD, which is where I fit into the company. My class in college was the first one to learn 3D CAD from day one and I took to it pretty well.

The other engineers went for Pro/E training, but didn't take to it as well as they had hoped. So most of their work is still done in autocad or in excel, which I use as a basis for my models.

The senior guys and I get along great, and we can sit in the conference room, unroll a few feet of plotter paper on the table, sketch out a design, and I've got more or less everything I need to start a 3D model. In the process, I'm picking up what I can from their years of engineering experience.

 

[unclesyd]

Don't forget the older generation, 62+. Having fought many battles to implement the computer into our engineering I was instrumental in getting ME10 into the mechanical group. I started out on ME10 then as the Drafting Design Department started using Micro-Station I picked up on it. Most of the time I stayed with ME10 due to there being a free chair and they had the first 19" monitors. Later on the site started switching to Autocad I kinda lost interest as my then current job didn't require much Cad work. I'm probably the only one that frequents this site that has never drawn a line in AutoCad.

One thing that I found about Cad is it a tremendous help in design, either original or a redesign. As I didn't desire an AutoCad seat and probably wouldn't have got one if I had asked I personally bought a Small Cad Program. ProDEsign This evolved later into DesignCad which I still use today. In DesignCad you can use their programming language and basic to write macros and short programs of which I have over 200 working ones. When DesignCad went to Windows they changed from Basic to VB I never rewrote any macros or programs. I still run the DOS version to use the programs and Macros.

I still use Cad quite often, like this week I drew some special prints for metal flashing for a very large house with weird architectural details.

Two things that I used and still do for design and problem solving are DesignCad and a Dos Outlining Program.

My firsts with using a personal computer in engineering.
First to have a personal IBM compatible box
First to have a 20 Meg hard drive.
First to have a math coprocessor.
First to have a 32k of ram.
First to have a personal Cad program.
First to have a math program MathCad on any computer.

At Work;
The initial engineering computers were set up with Symphony/Lotus 123 and a word processor even though Symphony had one built in.

Instrumental in getting ME10, 2 chairs, on site.
Instrumental in getting Compress for the Engineering Dept. Had to do some rearguard action as the program was so buggy.
Instrumental in getting Pipe Plus. Ran the first case test with the program. Several months after we got PipePlus an Engineer set up a pretty complex case, the piping manifold in H2 plant. They tried to run it on a 286 sans mathcoprocessor and 72 hrs later it was still processing. I brought my coprocessor in and it finished in just under 6 hrs. Every computer in Engineering got a math coprocessor.

Just some of trials and tribulations of doing Computer Aided Engineering work with accountants running the show, nothings changed.

 

[ewh]

I'm in the 40-49 group, and have to agree with many here, especially EddyC. Starting out on the board, I remember how frustrating it was to have to rethink the view layout (lack of planning on my part) and how to precision erase when changes came along. CAD has done away with all of the "artistry" that went into a manual drawing, and along with it went the knowledge of what constitutes a good drawing. I actually used to know descriptive geometry (how many here know that now?) but have forgotten all but the most basic principles due to lack of necessity.
I am developing arthritis in my hand from years of pressing down too hard on my pencil, so I don't miss it all that much. CAD has definitely speeded up the design process from what we did on the board.

 

[wes616]

I worked for a couple of years in the entertainment industry, as a "set designer"... which is basically a drafter / detail designer. In entertainment, almost everyone is still doing hand drawings (as of 2004 this was still true). Part of the issue here really has to do with the "artistry" as ewh had mentioned (I once had a director take several of my drawings and have them framed for his wall), and another is the fact that most of the work is done by freelancers who provide their own equipment, so the price point of CAD software was a factor.

Wes C.
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[corus]

As I'm from the UK and ageism is now illegal here I refer you to my solictor for daring to ask!

corus

 

[Heckler]

I'm in the 40-49 group.....by about 9 months. When I started college CAD was just being introduced into the class work for the ME program. So I only had one drafting class that was "on the board". When I got my first job the company had just made the transition to CAD. I had to do some board work when doing some ECOs but most of the time we would redraw them in CAD. One thing I remember is playing with all the old drafting equipment especially the electric eraser......that was cool

Best Regards,

Heckler
Sr. Mechanical Engineer
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[ewh]

Ah, the electric eraser... I used to keep a sharp exacto handy to trim a sharp edge on the eraser. This really helped when trying to erase small, exact areas (better than the erasing template).

 

[swertel]

I remember using an exacto to deal with sepias and inked vellums. I could get a cleaner erase job by scratching it off than burning a hole through the paper with an ink eraser in the electric. Oh, I'm only 30. But I truely believe that we are doing a disservice to future engineers and designers by not making them learn how to manually prepare a print.

--Scott

http://wertel.eng.pro

 

[MikeHalloran]

I remain amazed at how few people knew the secret of using sepias ...

>>> print them backwards <<<

... so you never had to draw on the same surface from which you had bleached or erased part of the reproduced image.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[KENAT]

Eraser shields and licking the eraser to make it work better.

I never did a full engineering drawing on the board, however had the pleasure of making many amendments (ECO) on a range of media, including linen.

Ken 28

 

[ewh]

KENAT is right about licking the eraser. On ink and mylar drawings, licking your vinyl eraser made quick work of it. But I still think a sharp edge on an electric eraser was more accurate than the sheild.

 

[unclesyd]

How about just a hard gum eraser and gum bag with a horse hair brush.

How about a sweat smudge near completion.

How about mixing you own ink.

How about a hand held pencil sharpener.

How about pencils made from real cedar.

How about German silver drafting tools.

How about a bamboo T square with a metal edge.