How to be a Professional Engineer (PE)

written by Yiran Li

If you have the license of a professional engineer; to a client it means you've got the credentials to earn their trust, to an employer it signals your ability to take on a higher level of responsibility, among your colleagues it demands respect, to yourself it's a symbol of pride and measure of your own hard-won achievement.

To use the PE seal, engineers must complete several steps to ensure their competency.

1.      Earn a four-year degree in engineering from an accredited engineering program

2.      Pass the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) exam

3.      Complete four years of progressive engineering experience under a PE

4.      Pass the Principles and Practice of Engineering (PE) exam

Professional Engineers must maintain and improve their skills by fulfilling continuing education requirements depending on the state in which they are licensed. They need to take authorized courses regularly. Many higher level and responsible positions must be filled by licensed professional engineers. In the future, an increasing number of professions need Professional Engineering licenses to support their career requirements, like education. Many states start to ask for individual teaching engineering license.

References: https://www.nspe.org/resources/licensure
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Prompt 8: Practicing Your Knowledge

By Callaghan TysonMayer

During this semester, I took EGR100, which is the first and most general engineering course for all engineers. This class is broken down into 2 projects that are completely hands-on experience. For each project, we are broken up into groups of 4.

The first project is to build a robot out of a lego NXT kit. The robot has to be able to follow a black line, pick up a ball, then continue along the black line until it reaches a stand that it has to drop the ball into. This sounds very complicated, and it was for pretty much the entire project. The difficult part was not building the robot, that was very easy just like building legos. Programming the robot was not easy at all. The robot works through a series of if/then commands; this means "if the robot senses the ball in front of it, then it will raise the claw". A series of commands like this were programmed so that the robot did what we wanted it to do when a certain condition was met.

This is a picture of my group's final robot. After countless hours of work, we finally got it to do everything we wanted and we got an A on the project. This was an experience different from any other that I've had in a classroom. We had to do hands-on work and perform tasks that real engineers do on a daily basis. This was not easy and I can't say I enjoyed it, but it was definitely a good experience. 

The Future of Engineers

Written by: Adam Tarrant

          From a recent state of profession report from The Engineers Australia, it states that home-grown engineers have dropped significantly within its nation and can lead to some serious risks. The students studying math and science in Australia's high school and college courses have decreased in recent years, which will lead to a “broken pipeline of future engineers” (The Sydney Morning Herald). 

          There could be a few reasons as to why this decline of engineers is occurring. For starters, the school’s teachers and professors could have a negative effect on these student’s passion for the profession; the curriculum could be outdated or not effective. 

          

          Secondly, the recruiting and propaganda for these engineering programs could be lacking in drawing in these aspiring students. 

          If Australia wants to be considered a modern and current nation, they should strive to reverse the steady decline in engineers in the next couple of years or they will be facing some real problems in the future.

source: The Sydney Morning Herald

Smart phone app

Written by Seungyeon Lee


There are countless technology/systems that engineers have developed. One of them is a cancer-detecting smartphone app. Below is the photo of the cancer-detecting smartphone app.

Researchers from Washington State University have used prism, ELISA plate to make a smartphone app that would detect cancer. It is said that it could detect cancer with 99% of accuracy. 

How it works is really fantastic! There are 96 micro prism array and a 3D printed cradle which holds a phone with a camera. Then, the diagnostician uses the rig to take samples from the patient. Those samples will be put in the assay plate and the light from the camera will be shining the sample through the prism and the diagnostician would use an app to analyze the light from each patient's well in the ELISA plate by its color, and the color of the ELISA would tell the result. 

It sounds really cool and I would love to try it too. It is also cool that a smartphone app could be made to help a human's health. I think engineers should devise more ideas that would help human life like what this smartphone app did.

"ExtremeTech is the Web's top destination for news and analysis of emerging science and technology trends, and important software, hardware, and gadgets." ExtremeTech. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Apr. 2017.

Autonomous Vehicles

Written by: Adam Tarrant

          Modern technology is ever changing in today’s world. Although there are very little companies using these vehicles, the world anticipates autonomous driving cars to be sold to the public in the future. It’s no surprise people are excited about this invention, easing the stress of driving, especially in heavy travelled areas. 

          On the other hand, there may be some downfalls of this hardly researched technology. My first question is what will happen if the car malfunctions? Can the rider manually take over the vehicle? There are many cases in which technology has malfunctioned, while it was promised it wouldn’t have. This is a small issue in my mind because we see thousands of human-error motor vehicle accidents every day. This self-driving car very well might cut down on these accidents. 

          Also, if the cars were to be used in cities with high pedestrian levels, will the cars be able to avoid people that are walking across the street or will the world need to create structures that will keep the pedestrians and cars separate? Would we have to create fenced sidewalks? Raised roadways? These are things that not everyone is thinking about that could change our present roads and structures. 

          Engineers will be more needed than ever, struggling to keep up with the ever-changing environment we see today.

source: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/19/self-driving-cars-will-change-cities

Mythbusters

By Callaghan TysonMayer

Purdue engineering majors recently wrote a journal article about common myths about engineering students. The authors identified 7 myths they have heard about themselves, as engineering majors and broke them down as to why they are inaccurate.

1. The first, is that engineering students all love math and science. This is not true because a lot of future engineers just like the idea of hands-on applications that have a set outcome. 
2. Engineers sit at a computer all day. This is extremely false, because most of the work engineers do is in the field, working hands-on with team members on real physical projects. 
3. Engineers aren't very creative. If this were true, it would make everything much more difficult because engineers have to come up with different solutions to problems in the field. Often, it is an engineers job to create a completely new way of doing something, and to recreate the process for better efficiency. 
4. Engineers don't have good communication skills. This was a focus of one of the lectures we had for our EGR100 class this semester. Professor Morgan spent 2 weeks explaining the importance of communication in our field because a lot of what engineers do is done in teams, so you have to be able to communicate with your team members.
5. Engineers only work on significant projects. This isn't completely accurate because there are instances where engineers are checking up on codes and making sure everything is done correctly, which is a significant job, but what is insignificant?
6. Engineers don't have fun or diverse interests. In my opinion, there are so many different branches within the field and they all vary by a lot. Everyone has different interests with different ideas of fun.
7. Women aren't engineers. This isn't very hard to disprove, since the field is actually almost evenly gendered now and 3 of the 4 engineers that run this blog are women. 

Source: https://www.purdue.edu/futureengineers/Counselors%20and%20Teachers/Myths%20vs.%20Facts%20Engineering.html 

Chemical Engineering Safety Measures

written by Yiran Li

Chemical industry is a diverse industry and its products are omnipresent. The modern technology in developing these tailor made chemicals has been quite successful. As with any industry setting, safety is a major concern for the firm to run properly. The major hazards encountered in the operation of the plant in the chemical industries are toxic and corrosive chemicals release, fires, explosions, falls and faulty mechanised equipments. (NPTEL) Also, the design engineer must be aware of these hazards and must make every attempt to present a design which needs to be protective of the environment and of human health. Environmental issues must be considered not only within the context of chemical production but also during other stages of a chemical's life cycle, such as transportation, use by customers, recycling activities, and ultimate disposal.

Chemical engineers need to analysis potential hazards and take corrective measures to improve the safety of the process. The entire approach can be summarized as follows:

1.  Identify the hazards:“ what can possibly go wrong ”

2.  Evaluate the hazards:“ what are all the causes and how bad it can be ”

3.  Control the hazards:“ what should be done about it ”

Even though chemical industries take major precautions in ensuring the safety of their employees, the chemical processes that chemical engineers design and implement are not always safe. Occasionally, unexpected releases of toxic, reactive, and/or flammable liquids and gases ensue. A substantial amount of chemical engineering firms work together with the non-profit membership organization like CCPS, AIChE, or other private and government programs.

Reference 

http://www.exponent.com/chemical_engineering_process_safety/

http://www.truity.com/career-profile/chemical-engineer

http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/careers/college-to-career/chemistry-careers/chemical-engineering.html