Outline of my future

[lorenz90]

Hello, I’m Lorenzo, I joined the forum just a few days ago. I’m an Engineering student, now I’m attending at the Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering. I’m about to choose the elective courses, and in order to do that I’m deeply thinking about which one of my personal interests could lead me to a satisfactory professional career. Reading some random discussions I realized that this forum is frequented by a lot of engineers who are active in many different job areas. So, given the importance of the choice I’m making, I joined the forum in order to ask you some questions, because I’d like to have opinions of someone who is more integrated in the field than me.

The areas of Mechanical Engineering that I like the most are Mechanical Design, Vibrations and Mechatronics.
In particular, in the area of Mechanical Design I could attend courses like design with advanced materials, advanced design of mechanical structures and CAE.
Vibrations are interesting, but I’m not an expert in the field, so at the moment the choice is quite hard.
Mechatronics was my passion when I was younger, but I’m concerned because it is deeply related to Electrical Engineering and Automation, so the risk is that as a ME I won’t be able to reach a sufficiently strong level of competences. (maybe it’s better to focus on the mechanical part only?)

I know, my message is very long, and probably I made some mistake, but I hope you’ll apreciate my effort since I’m not a native speaker and speaking English isn’t my cup of tea . So, which area do you suggest me, in term of job request, wadge, and probability of interesting developements in the future?

Thank you, Lorenzo

 

[GregLocock]

"Mechatronics was my passion when I was younger, but I’m concerned because it is deeply related to Electrical Engineering and Automation, so the risk is that as a ME I won’t be able to reach a sufficiently strong level of competences. "

Where do 90% of electrical failures occur? Mechanically. Personally I blame EEs for encouraging the use of star washers and barely torqued hardware. Also frankly EE for robotics is plug and play. As such I wouldn't doubt that your contribution to a mechatronics team would be fine. So if that is what you /want/ to do, do it. Even if it is a bit harder than some other option, if it is what you want to do you'll be better at it.



Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376

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[MikeHalloran]

Also Low Insertion Force connectors, omitting latches and locks on connectors, selecting the wrong wire for constantly flexed cables, designing custom power supplies with zero margin for system changes, allowing no room for cooling mechanisms or service access, using inappropriate materials for bearings, and on and on.

I'll assert that at least >99< percent of all 'electrical' failures are caused by electrical engineers' hubris and ignorance of mechanical issues that predictably, and repeatedly, bite them in the arse.


... present company excepted, of course. The sparkys who hang out at E-T are in a different league from the ones whom I've been, er, privileged, to work with. Okay, all but two. You don't know them.





Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[GregLocock]

Hey i know a good smoke doctor as well. So there are at least three!

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

 

[lorenz90]

Thank you for replying,
I think that we agree about the mechatronics subject: projects in that area are developed by interdisciplinary teams, so instaed of studying both the electrical/control and mechanical aspects, I'd better to focus on the mechanical design problems. In fact I'm relieved knowing that the projects aren't developed by only one engineer, because this gives me the freedom to develop my mechanical design skills, without preventing me the partecipation to teams designing mechatronical systems.

What do you think about the fields of advanced materials (polymers, composites) and reliability of structures, both applied to mechanical design? In your opinion are they going to be requested in the future? Do you think that industry will invest on them, or that other branch of mechanical design will be perferred?

 

[ivymike]

of course advanced materials will be required/requested in the future, in various fields... but the materials guys often seem to be given a closet to sit in and are only let out when their input is desired... I'd go with the mechatronics and/or vibrations if I were you

 

[GregLocock]

Vibrations is OK, I worked in that field for 15 years or so, but basically designing GIANT FIGHTING ROBOTS WITH LASERS sounds a bit more interesting to me.

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

 

[berkshire]

Greg,
I thought they had those on automobile assembly lines
B.E.

 

[debodine]

Nano machines and molecular level devices are the future. Whichever of your three interests will get you into those areas should provide you a good future.

 

[lorenz90]

Nano machines are a fascinating topic, but I always thought that they were matter for phisycist, because nano mechanics is deeply related with quantum mechanics and molecular interactions. Do you think that the subject is suitable for mechanical engineers?

 

[debodine]

It may not be at this time, but for any research to add value to society, eventually engineers must have access to the research and make something useful from it. I just wanted to point out to you that sometime in the future, engineers will be needed for this field, but I am not knowledgable enough to know when that will occur. That will need to be your judgment, but I wish you the best of success with whatever choice you make. I am not experienced in Mechatronics, but perhaps it would be a good starting point to be prepared for the nano world of the future?

 

[behindpropellers]

Lorenzo,

Go get a part time job at a machine shop. The experienced gained will be equal to your masters.

 

[rb1957]

"outline of my future" ... if you're going into engineering, read Dilbert

 

[KENAT]

I wish I knew more about mechatronics & the like, I think you're really downplaying how useful it could be.

Around here it seems it ends up being the mechanical/mechatronics folk that get stuck picking the motors and sensors etc. and the electrical guys mostly do boards and firmware. Plus having some mechatronics might support a systems role in future which can be a way to stay technical but be in leadership.

Posting guidelines faq731-376

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(probably not aimed specifically at you)
What is Engineering anyway: faq1088-1484​

 

[MikeHalloran]

Oh, I should point out that it's essential to be prepared to be flexible about what you do, because some of what you will do hasn't been invented yet.

As a freshman in college, we learned to program in FORTRAN, the Elbonian way, completely on paper, because the college had only one computer accessible to students, and you had to sign up months in advance to use it because the grad students were computing PI to many decimal places. No part of it looked interesting to me.

Several decades after graduation, I took a detour into writing firmware, because I needed it done for machine control projects, and our IT department started layoffs when their backlog got down to ten years. So I wrote programs, at first on a teletype, later on terminals. Most of it was done in assembler and/or FORTH, because that's all that would fit in the available program memory. I did a lot of work with the 8741, which had 1024 bytes of program memory, and 32 bytes of usable ram. I also became pretty decent with the 8080 and 8086.
I found programming a natural fit, because a program is a machine that you write, and I like to write, and I like machines. But those tiny microcontrollers didn't exist when I was planning my career.






Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA