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IED Activity 1.5 Discover Engineering Page 1

Activity 1.6 Discover Engineering

Introduction
What is engineering? Many people have difficulty answering this question. In fact,
engineering is a diverse field there are many disciplines within engineering that
can involve the application of a very different body of knowledge and skills. Nearly
everything that is not natural (i.e., created by Mother Nature) most likely was
designed and created with input from engineers. The shampoo you used this
morning to wash your hair, the technology that cleans the water you drink, the
buildings in which you live, work, and attend school, and the iPhone you use to
communicate all involved the expertise of engineers in the initial design, building and
testing, and final production.

All engineers are problems solvers. The differences among engineers in varying
disciplines are dependent on the types of problems that they solve. In general there
are four major disciplines within the engineering field: chemical, civil, electrical, and
mechanical. Many other engineering disciplines are derived as an extension of or
specialization within one of these major disciplines. For example, environmental
engineering is a subcategory of civil engineering. Other engineering disciplines have
resulted from the combination of aspects of two or more of the major disciplines.
Mechatronics is a relatively new branch of engineering that incorporates both
mechanical and electrical engineering principles.

In this activity you will investigate the four major disciplines of engineering and
consider their impact on you and the world.

Equipment
Engineering notebook
Pencil
Computer with internet access

Procedure
1. What is engineering? Based on your current perception, in a few sentences
define the term engineering.

Engineering is the way to solve problems by using scientific and mathematical
principles to solve the problem.




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IED Activity 1.5 Discover Engineering Page 2
Now investigate the engineering profession. Some websites that may be helpful in
your research include the following.
Discover Engineering. www.discoverengineering.org
Engineering Degrees 101.
http://engineeringdegrees101.com/engineering-info/why-become-an-
engineer/
Engineer Girl. www.engineergirl.org
National Engineers Week. www.eweek.org
The Sloan Career Cornerstone Center. www.careercornerstone.org
Try Engineering. www.tryengineering.org

As you perform your research, record information that will help you respond to the
following. Once you have gathered sufficient information, write your responses in the
spaces provided.

2. Describe the four major disciplines of engineering and identify problems or
projects that an engineer in each discipline might encounter.

Chemical engineering

Chemical engineering is the process to create and manufacture new useful
products thats cheap and is safe to the environment for example plastic,
fuels, fibers, medicines and fertilizer. It is also an important role in protecting
the environment by inventing cleaner technologys.





Civil engineering
Civil engineering is the process in to which creating/ rebuilding and overseeing
the construction buildings, tunnels, highways, skyscrapers, and water
reservoirs. The mainly work in cities because civil engineering means an
engineer for the city or civilians.






Electrical engineering

An electrical engineer is a engineer who develops or create components for
some fun things in life for example MP3, digital cameras, or roller coasters.
Electrical engineering are people who create medical tests and
communication systems for the world, government or country.


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Mechanical engineering
An mechanical engineer develops mechanical item or devices for different
purposes for example a bike, car engine, childs toy, to airplanes. Mechanical
engineers work in all the fields of engineering Aerospace, Biomedical,
automotive and computers they are mainly called general practitioners.



3. Choose a discipline of engineering (other than chemical, civil, electrical and
mechanical) that is of interest to you. Describe this engineering field and explain
how it is an extension of, specialization within, or combination of one or more of
the four major engineering disciplines. (Optional create a PowerPoint slide to
describe your chosen engineering discipline.)
Aerospace engineer deals with the development and creation of high tech machinery
in order to travel in space and create vehicles for example a new high speed car,
a new ground o sea transportation for high speed trains to travel from one
country to the next country like Africa in one hour. Aerospace engineers nay work
on the Orion space mission planning to put man in space by the year 2020.
Aerospace engineers have access to top notch equipment if working for a major
company like NAZA. Overall Aerospace engineering is the best because its
exciting and they make a lot of money.





Visit the National Academy of Engineering website on the Greatest Engineering
Achievements of the 20
th
Century at http://www.greatachievements.org/.
Choose one of the achievements listed and read the information provided about
your selected achievement. Then, based on what you learn, respond to the
following.

4. Describe your selected achievement in a few sentences.
The creation of electronics made the 21
st
century a major stepping stone to better
and easier life thanks to electronics many people could communicate easier and
faster and many people can enjoy a wide array of internment on their electronics
even if its tv, videogame or working faster electronics made the lifestyle of all
humans more enjoyable.



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5. Which major discipline of engineering do you think was most involved in the
development of this achievement? Justify your answer.
One major discipline of engineering that was involved in the development of
electronics is the discipline of mechanical engineering because of the creation of
the oscillation value by John Ambrose Fleming which help create the many
electronics in the world today.









Visit the National Academy of Engineering website on the Grand Engineering
Challenges at http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/. Review your choice of
an engineering discipline in number 3 and consider how an engineer within this
discipline could contribute to the solution of one or more of the grand challenges.

6. If you were an engineer within the discipline that you chose in number 3, which
engineering grand challenge would you like to work on?

I would like to work on enhancing virtual reality because imagine playing a video
game and you could see everything thats happening around you and you can play
while looking at the image that so life like and you could make a holographic
computer pop up out of nowhere and it works like a real computer and you could
take it anyway that what challenge I would like to work on the enhancement of virtual
reality



7. Describe your selected grand challenge.
The challenge of virtual reality is to create an illusionary area where human beings
could see and look so life that humans could feel like they are there at that
particular place scientist are now trying to see if they can make virtual reality with
using particular goggles to experience virtual reality with the naked eye.
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8. Why is a solution to this challenge important to the world?
The solution to virtual reality may not be important to some people but to scientist
and people who understands it can help revolutionize how society works we could
use virtual paper instead of real paper thus dropping the cutting down of trees, we
could make internment more better for each person to have fun and feel more
thrilled because of the amazing life like graphics. Finally it can help children with
education to make learning more fun like to see the galaxy with a push of a button or
seeing the American revolution happen in just a few moments. Overall this is why
the solution to virtual reality is so important to the world.











9. How could you, as an engineer in your chosen discipline, contribute to a solution
to this challenge?
In my chosen discipline as a engineer I would help the people trying to solve this
problem by giving them material and computer that may help create a virtual
portable device and I would invest some extra money in order to help them
achieve what they need to finish it and finally i would help them by using m free
time and get a job n their company that specialize o n virtual reality.







Conclusion
1. What is it about engineering that is common to all disciplines of engineering?
That is, what makes an engineer an engineer regardless of the work one
does?
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What makes a engineer regardless of their own field of work is every engineer
has the same job to create and build a product or item that would help the world
and or country. They help solve problems with mathematical and scientific
methods.



2. Why do you think engineering has been called the stealth profession? (Hint:
there are many internet resources that address this question.)
Engineers are considered to be called stealth professionals because they work
with the government or secret organizations that the public doesnt even know
about so thats why they are called stealth professionals because they
sometimes work in the shadows with no public awareness at all.




3. How is an engineer different from a scientist?
Engineers are different from scientist because they specialize in creating
products for the humanity scientist study and create solution to discover why
things are there or what will happen if so this is the reason why engineers and
scientist are different because scientist think engineers create.




4. What interpersonal characteristics do you think are important to the success of
an engineer of any discipline?
Some interpersonal characterizes that are important to the success of an
engineer in any discipline is they must have patients, must be hardworking, have
a open mind, feel to be whoever there are, always ask questions and are fun to
around with. Overall this is some characteristics that a engineer in any discipline
should have.