Today I
start a new experience, so very exciting. It’s said that for considering your
life lived, each human being should have done three things:
- Have a child
- Seed a tree
- Write a book
I can
confirm the first and the second one, but the third has been a “to do” until
now. At this time in my life, when the days pass faster, writing this blog
could be a way to fulfill this last task.
My only
goal is to find a meeting point where all people that love technics find a
place where they can discuss their ideas and, what is even more important,
sharing their experiences, enabling that the new generations have access to a
knowledge that is not taught at school and perhaps, but only perhaps, these new
generations may understand that there is different way of engineering, far away
from the patterns that nowadays are used in most technological companies.
Although I
am the visible face, this site is supported by a group of persons, united by
our love for innovation, the challenges and a deep respect for the others
ideas.
When we
thought about the right name for this blog the first name coming around was
“The dirt nail’s corner” because this is what all is about, to preserve a
specie in extinction that ecologists don’t even know: the person that builds
from his ideas a real thing, dirtying his hands in his commitment.
It is
curious that in our supertechnified world less and less professional engineers
have contact with real life, in which a problem has to be solved in a short
time, in which they have to face sadly that their design does not work as
expected or all in one, they do not assume as a personal challenge the projects
in which they are working.
This place
has been made for those who do not face their work as a doom, for those who believe
that there is always different way of facing things, for those who encourage
themselves facing challenges, for those who still remember that the meaning of
the word ‘engineer’ has its roots in “ingenium” – brain, for those who jump off their seats when they hear “this
problem has no solution”, for the geeks, for the micro-rumplers and radio-beepers,
for those who are excited when the damn equipment in which you have been
working 3 months, finally works.
Obviously,
after having said the previous, the rest
of the human beings is, therefore, excluded from our aims (probably, the
majority of the world). Sorry.
Fundamentally
we only want to know if there is still intelligent life out there and this blog
is just a shout to let us know.
Once this
short introduction has been done, I would like to expose which are the reasons,
in my own opinion, for this situation. From my point of view, I think that in
the last 15 or 20 years, the priorities of our technical schooled people has
changed and I suppose, that in other educational areas the situation is the
same. The access to digital tools, which are more and more powerful, has
induced that the engineers are more far away from the reality of their designs.
In a globalized world these kind of attitudes, have also been supported by the
companies, that believe that there will always be somebody that will build it
much cheaper for you. This is the phenomenon of the “outsourcing” where you
don’t have to matter about how something is built, because this is a matter of
the “Chinese factories”.
The result
is, that we have legions of newbie engineers whose first task when entering a
company, is writing specifications and designing equipment conceptually perfect
but can´t be built.
When I talk
about the digital tools, I consider that, at least three of them have been
especially harmful in our own sector, aeronautics, but I guess that perhaps
with other names, the same happens in other areas. The three tools are:
- Microsoft Office
- CATIA
- Simulink
I am NOT
saying that these tools are bad, they are excellent and most of the times a
great help, but a fundamental rule of the computer aided design tools has been forgotten:
Shit_out =
Shit_in * K
Being K a
constant proportional to the cost and complexity of the CAD tool. In other
words, these programs and many other similar ones are AID tools, but if there
is no grey matter in the input, the result will be a total disaster.
The order
of these three programs is not random, being MO the first one because of the
COPY/PASTE functionality, that leads to the engineers writing a specification,
as they have not enough experience, to copy paste randomly the requisites from
previous specifications. This leads to “overspecificated” specifications up to
absurd levels.
The second
place has been conquered by CATIA that is an excellent CAD tool with endless
functionalities and a standard in the aeronautic world. This tool is so good,
that designers often get wrong and take the tool as a faith; “If CATIA tells so,
you believe it”. And this dogma is told
also to those who are in the aircraft, trying to pass a harness through a hole
in frame 38, although it is solid like a rock, and there isn’t a hole anywhere.
The worst thing of all is, that when you tell the designer so, he is absolutely
offended and shows you that hole in CATIA. In this case, you could invite the designer
to go to the aircraft and look after the hole for himself, but this will,
probably, end up in a physical menace…
The last
place in our top 3, but not least, is SIMULINK, another excellent simulation
tool, very extended in high tech companies, that shows up the same problem as
the previous one, it is that good, that engineers end up believing the
simulation results as faith dogmas and they do not remember that the results
will be as good as the input data they have introduced, that, usually are not
more than approximation and common models based on previous experiences.
As an
overview, please, when you design anything, do it with the deepest humility,
thinking that the data you are obtaining are ONLY an approximation to the
infinitely more complex real world. Go down to the workshop, talk to the
technicians. Take as a first rule, that if anything is not working it will be
probably your fault and only, after going over your data and design a dozen of
times and being absolutely sure that it is all right, think about blaming others.
In future
entries we will bring up technical problems that we have already solved,
letting you think about a solution and after that, we will tell you how we
solved it.
I also want
to encourage all senior engineers, the white haired (if there is any hair at
all) who have fight in a thousand battles, to collaborate with us helping us to
transfer to the people who come after us something intangible, our experience.
In this
first blog entry we will not point out any technical problem. We would like you
to tell us the names of the ten most influencing aircraft designers of the
history. We are not looking for those who have designed the most beautiful or
fastest aircrafts, but those who have left their footprint in history.
You may be
wondering what this survey is all about. I will tell you. For those who are not
familiar with the aviation world this should be a kick-start for reading and
researching what other have already done. For those that love aircrafts, this
will lead you to remember a lot of thoughts that were in your dark memories.
And for all, it will show you which is the last aim we want to prove. That
there are still people making a difference and may be you are one of them, even
if you don’t know it.
A thought:
If a design
works at the first try, for sure there will be an even number of errors.
See you!
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