Engineering Thread

devinejay

At least the hoodies didn't end up with that Igor Shvets quote on them. I instantly tired of that idea! Not that I have much against him really, but the thought of seeing that quote on your jumper as you spend your summer preparing to repeat the E&M exam, not something I'd look forward to.

TheAmateur

Agh this week's 1E3 program is seriously twisting my melon man! Got the 4 mark bit to work, but the last bit?!? I think it would've been easier if she'd let us use call by reference parameters this week...

Jonathan

TheAmateur wrote: »

Agh this week's 1E3 program is seriously twisting my melon man! Got the 4 mark bit to work, but the last bit?!? I think it would've been easier if she'd let us use call by reference parameters this week...

It's fairly handy.

Give it a bit of time and understand it.

Iterative concepts are important.

TheAmateur

Think I got it now, had to just get rid of what I had instead of trying to tweak it all the time, I was just going around in circles that way. I'd say this is harder that anything we've done so far. Do you know what we have to do? Do you remember it or something?

Jonathan

TheAmateur wrote: »

Think I got it now, had to just get rid of what I had instead of trying to tweak it all the time, I was just going around in circles that way. I'd say this is harder that anything we've done so far. Do you know what we have to do? Do you remember it or something?

I looked up the course page. Newtons Quotent?

Brian

I know I'm a bit late to the table on this one, but, seriously, why the hell did we do about a week worth of lectures on the proof of integration? If I'm engineering something, I hardly expect to have to prove all the formulae I require before using them. Granted, the theory behind the methods is interesting, but I think that explaining it logically rather than writing it all down in a mind-melding blur would have let the information be absorbed in a more productive manner.

Me, study?

TheAmateur

Hah yeah it's been a crazy old time in 1e1. I kinda like seeing where everything comes from, cause I never liked being given a formula and told to just accept it. Still though, when he brought in X1 double star I had to laugh. It sounded like most of the class groaned at the same time and the guy sitting two seats down from me (long ginger hair, you probably know him to see) just mutters "ah for ****'s sake":D

Boston

Thats mathematicians for you. They fundamentally believe you can't "understand" something unless you derive it from first principles. They are seldom the ones who actually use the formula for anything practical.

That said, you wouldn't use a c++ function without understanding how it worked, maths is the same.

TheAmateur

Hey Boston, did you do electronic engineering?

Boston

I did CD Stream.

TheAmateur

Boston wrote: »

I did CD Stream.

That's what I'm thinking of doing. Are you doing a postgrad course now?

Boston

PhD In wireless telecommunications

TheAmateur

Boston wrote: »

PhD In wireless telecommunications

So did you do the masters in integrated systems design? Sorry for all the questions btw, hope I'm not being too nosy. What I'm trying to do is see where it all leads. It's hard to imagine from 1st year in a course where they throw all kinds of different information at you, what you might end up doing. I know one person who did the degree, who's doing a part-time masters in civil at the moment, and I've heard of another guy who did electronic and then a masters in music and media technologies, and now he's doing a PhD in spatial music. Those are two wildly different scenarios. Do most people fall into the area that interests them?

Brian

I don't want to fall into a rotary engine

Boston

TheAmateur wrote: »

So did you do the masters in integrated systems design? Sorry for all the questions btw, hope I'm not being too nosy. What I'm trying to do is see where it all leads. It's hard to imagine from 1st year in a course where they throw all kinds of different information at you, what you might end up doing. I know one person who did the degree, who's doing a part-time masters in civil at the moment, and I've heard of another guy who did electronic and then a masters in music and media technologies, and now he's doing a PhD in spatial music. Those are two wildly different scenarios. Do most people fall into the area that interests them?

You don't need a masters to get a PhD. It all leads to either Industry or further study. With the engineering degree you can go off in several directions, for example economics masters. Some where start off in a medical degree, ultimately becoming experts in bio medicine, other will ends up working in a completely different field which never uses anything they learnt.

btw the integrated systems masters doesn't exist anymore afaik

TheAmateur

Boston wrote: »

You don't need a masters to get a PhD.

Shows how much I know about college... I honestly thought it was always masters first, then PhD (if you're lucky).

Boston wrote: »

btw the integrated systems masters doesn't exist anymore afaik

Oh. Is there something else in its place? Guess it won't be long anyways until the engineering degree itself is changed to a 3+2 with a masters at the end. Wonder if the Goverment will pay for the masters when it switches? That is, if there's even free fees at that point...

Boston

Plan was for the masters program in 2010, but that doesn't look likely.

phalaris

TheAmateur wrote: »

That's what I'm thinking of doing. Are you doing a postgrad course now?

I'm doing CD now. So far it's very enjoyable. Not quite true of any of my mates who went into civil or mechanical. It's early days yet, of-course..

Having gotten 3C2 out of the way (most difficult, nebulous subject I've ever had) I am now glad I didn't do the pure C stream.
DSP and signal analysis in general is ultimately what sets an engineer apart from a computer scientist. Very challenging (Laplace, Fourier, Z and discrete Fourier transforms), but very insightful. Computer scientists can implement these algorithms, but to understand how these tools apply to actual systems I think you have to understand the maths behind it. Signal processing is required everywhere. Just a few examples are mechanical engineering, medicine, music technology, molecular dynamics, economics, digital media..
I started off doing D but I am happy I switched to CD.

The second semester and the bulk of the computer part of the course is about to start on monday. I can't wait..

Brian

Could anyone explain how to do the second question of the Wiley assignment? I understand what the shape is that you're trying to get, but the integration seems complicated to an absurb degree.

Also, Boston; if I have an iPod dock with shit speakers, how hard would it be to open it up and wire in some fairly decent active speakers that I already own?

Boston

Very

TheAmateur

Baza210 wrote: »

Could anyone explain how to do the second question of the Wiley assignment? I understand what the shape is that you're trying to get, but the integration seems complicated to an absurb degree.

The second question? Do you have:

wiley wrote:

Find the area of the surface generated by revolving the given curve about the y-axis

? That was my second one anyways...

Brian

Yes, that.

And - Good thing you're doing a PhD. HELP.

mathew

wanna give us a picture of the wiley problem???

Brian

y = sqrt (x^2 + 256). Get surface area when curve is rotated about y axis, between limits -7<=y<=7.

See, it's a circle with radius 16, but you're lopping off the top and bottom with the limits =/

PurpleFistMixer

Baza210 wrote: »

y = sqrt (x^2 + 256). Get surface area when curve is rotated about y axis, between limits -7<=y<=7.

See, it's a circle with radius 16, but you're lopping off the top and bottom with the limits =/

So get the surface area of the sphere, then subtract the surface area of the sections you're lopping off? There's probably a more elegant, calculus-related way to do it, though. : )

Brian

getting the area you're lopping off is just as difficult, surely; it's not a hemisphere that you take off.

PurpleFistMixer

Baza210 wrote: »

getting the area you're lopping off is just as difficult, surely; it's not a hemisphere that you take off.

If it was a hemisphere you took off your might find your surface area to be zero. : p I just thought "ah sure find some equation for the surface area of a sphere segment as a function of distance from the centre or something", but yeah, that sounds like it could be unpleasant.

Boston

I remember it being simple to do once you got the hag of it.

Brian

The surface area is the sum of the circumference by delta y as y goes between 7 and -7 and delta y goes to zero. Great.

Peleus

use the formula that he used in the lectures, just change x for y.

something like S.A= integration 2PI f(x) sqrt(f'(x)^2 +1) dx