Average Age Of Pg'ers

[The_Crimson_Ghost]

Yay i'm in the second younger group.

I turned 20 the september 24th!!

[davee5]

Anyhow, I suppose MEs are amongst the top echelon of handymen/builders in college, but to be honest, I'd say more then half of the ME students haven't a clue how to build anything, much less how to tune a hand plane or program a cnc mill.

To be honest, "product design" sounds like a very broad and general term. Were I interviewing someone who was fresh out of college and I needed someone to design certain types of machiney, I'd say odds are I wouldn't be hiring them. Is there a specific field of design you're looking to get into? If nothing else, I can whip up some mean solidworks renderings.

Dude, no crap on that first point. Really not to toot my own horn but when in undergrad at Stanford, theoretically one of the top engineering schools in the nation, I was appalled at how many of my peers can't hold a damn hammer, let alone design a linkage, mill it, troubleshoot, etc. Now granted the real problem might be schools like Stanford, MIT, CalTech, etc are all very theoretical now, with usually only a few hands-on courses required and none that make a "real" engineer out of any of them. If I was going to hire fresh-out-of-school ME I'd hire CalPoly SLO, best hands-on schooling/legitimate engineering school I know of. Maybe Harvey Mudd, but they're more research oriented.

PD is, by design and intent, very broad. Machinery design is far far away from what PD does, so no offense taken there. It's about the intersection of the human and the technical, where you are working on understanding what makes products (not machines so much) excellent for real people. Classic example is the iPod, clean design, intuitive, useful, and revolutionary in its simplicity and usability. It would take waaaaay too much time to get into teh nuances of what I mean in text, but check out the PD website and you'll get a decent idea of what I mean. Many people in the program are stronger in art than in engineering, I'm much more technically oriented.

If you want to give me any tips on makign a case out of carbon I'd love to hear them, as I've never done CF or glass work. If you're up for it I've got plans/sketches of what I'm planning on doing (and WILL do, good prep or not) that you could give me some much needed feedback on.

Before you sign up for the PhD thing, find a bunch of phuds and talk to them... not a lot of real normal people make it past year 6 or 7 of grad school, let alone year 12 of friggin college. But to each their own.

-Dave

[thegarehanman]

At LSU, we have a 1 year intensive masters program that is intertwined with the senior year of your bachelor's. Although, the standard master's program is still available. Honestly, I get along really well with the phd's in the ME department. Well, most of them at least. Most are very down to earth, very sociable guys.

I hear you on the more artistic than mechanical thing. That's why I like composites, when you're designing structures in the field of CFD, you get to combine strength and beauty. I think instrument building really does suit someone who's well versed in both asthetics and mechanics much more than someone who focuses on simply one or the other.

As for composites, should you have any specific questions, shoot them by me. Although, I may end up telling you much, much more than you'd care to know.

peace,

russ

[Jon]

20 in a few months as well.

Anyone else here playing in a band with extreme age differences?

Me 19, guitarist 58. I guarantee I win this fight hands down.

[Desopolis]

21,

I turned 18 moved out of my parents house and wanted to get as far away from a ex girlfriend as possible. Made it to Indiana, and it took me 3 years to make it back home.

I stopped off at Purdue for a while, and now I'm back in Texas trying for the School of Architecture at UT Austin.

I'll say this, Ive learned alot about the world and about people since leaving home, and am glad to kinda slip back into being a young college kid. The world is much heavier then anyone wants to admit, and no one will tell you that. you have to learn it on your own.

and to you ME guys, The most creative people in school arnt in the Eng. Department, There in Art! Architects, Int. Designers, furniture, etc. are constantly using workshops and creating stuff. Kinda a bridge between fields I guess.

[davee5]

and to you ME guys, The most creative people in school arnt in the Eng. Department, There in Art! Architects, Int. Designers, furniture, etc. are constantly using workshops and creating stuff. Kinda a bridge between fields I guess.

exactly why I'm trying to go back to product design, it's literally a fusion of the ME tech stuff and the art stuff. But yeah, good point. Now if only those artists knew how to actually build anything that didn't fall apart under load...

[Desopolis]

hahaha

true..

when I was in HS and took a tour of the school the guide said this:

Architects are the ones who can come up with some of the most amazing designs in the world, Architectural Engineers are the ones who smack them and explain why it wont work..

im a dual degree though, so I'll get the best of both worlds, although I dont plan on pursuing AENG. with a masters.

[ToneMonkey]

27 (and a Mechanical Engineer - soon to be chartered)

[thegarehanman]

21,

I turned 18 moved out of my parents house and wanted to get as far away from a ex girlfriend as possible. Made it to Indiana, and it took me 3 years to make it back home.

I stopped off at Purdue for a while, and now I'm back in Texas trying for the School of Architecture at UT Austin.

I'll say this, Ive learned alot about the world and about people since leaving home, and am glad to kinda slip back into being a young college kid. The world is much heavier then anyone wants to admit, and no one will tell you that. you have to learn it on your own.

and to you ME guys, The most creative people in school arnt in the Eng. Department, There in Art! Architects, Int. Designers, furniture, etc. are constantly using workshops and creating stuff. Kinda a bridge between fields I guess.

Ah, but you see creativity comes in many forms, many of which you are taking for granted. I look at the steam turbine as a fairly ingenious invention. It certainly is usefull, there's a good chance your power is being generated by a steam turbine, whether the working fluid is being heated by the burning of fossil fuels or through a nuclear reaction is another story. Anyhow, there's not a doubt in my mind that some creativity was necessary to at least innititiate the design of that.

I won't argue that most engineers lack creative skills whatsoever, but it's something I take very seriously and very personally(can't explain that part). I've had to design quite a few things for quite a few classes and I look at my style of design as a bit of an art. Without fail, I almost always have the simplest design, which is intentional and done with the logic that it will be the most reliable and easiest to build.

I appologize if I seem hostile, I just get a bit heated when I hear this "all of the people in the design school are better at designing then you." While I have no doubt that some of them most definitely can draw a spline with their eyes closed and then turn it into a shopping center that can't support its own weight, I think that the majority of the students in that school are only passing by the skin of their teeth and wouldn't know a good design if it was strapped to the business end of a mack truck and presented to them at 70mph. I only say this because I know quite a few people in exactly that situation. Yet all of them are quite convinced that they're about as good as it gets. . kids these days haha

peace,

russ

[davee5]

I appologize if I seem hostile, I just get a bit heated when I hear this "all of the people in the design school are better at designing then you." While I have no doubt that some of them most definitely can draw a spline with their eyes closed and then turn it into a shopping center that can't support its own weight, I think that the majority of the students in that school are only passing by the skin of their teeth and wouldn't know a good design if it was strapped to the business end of a mack truck and presented to them at 70mph. I only say this because I know quite a few people in exactly that situation. Yet all of them are quite convinced that they're about as good as it gets. . kids these days haha

peace,

russ

This is fast getting hijacked into an ME/designer thread, but just as a note if you REALLY want to get pissed off by people who consider themselves God's gift to mankind and the only true designers or innovators head over to the core77 industrial design forums. I've personally worked with some of the world's best ID guys and I like nearly all of them, but the idiots over on those forums (none of whom are anywhere near legendary status) manage to make me never ever want to come back. Unforuntaley 2-3% of them have really cool ideas and pretty pictures that I find inspiring so I keep going back. Though now i stay away from the forums. -Dave

[another doug]

Regarding the engineering/design conversation: I believe that a design is no more than a pretty picture without a practical, workable application. It's certainly true that many engineers don't understand aesthetics, but there are also many designers don't know how to make their pretty pictures work in a practical sense. Real genius is when someone can meld those two aspects to create something that is both artistic and functional. In some ways, I think it is more creative to work with practical restraints than it is to work from a blank slate.

Guitar building is a really good example of this; we're all looking for an aesthetically pleasing end result, but they still need to be playable. It is difficult to come up with a truly original design, so when that happens it is (to me, anyway) more impressive than the most impressive painting. But then again, I may be biased because I like guitars more than paintings in the first place.

I also agree with Russ that the simplest solution is often the most elegant (assuming that I didn't misinterpret his post).

Back to the subject of age: I am 32.

Edit: I am neither a designer or an engineer professionally, if it matters.

[goat]

I`ll be 45 in April

[redwhiteandthemaple]

Lol.. you can pick more than 1 option.

I'm 19, attending Uof Toronto

And hey man.. creativity is Everywhere. If I truly believed that design art was where true creativity was at, I would have went for graphic designs or something, but here I am studying how brain works and functional anatomy.

The thing is.. if you look at the most "creative" people in the history.. they were never JUST an artist. Michaelangelo, DaVinci, Descarte, Einstein, Aristotle, just name a few. They drew, painted, did math, experimented with physics/chemistry/biology, wrote books on variety subjects, all very philosophical.

Of course, as the world progresses, everything becomes more specialized and you just don't have the time to learn as much branches of subjects, but if your statement was true about all the creative people are in design art.. how the hell did we make cars? light bulbs? a computer screen with a 1600:1 contrast ratio within less than 2 inches of width of space? iPod? They certainly weren't accidents (well few were actually, but 99% not..)

I'm sure when you see the Big Ben, you won't go it was all design artists. I'm sure when you see the Eiffle tower you won't go it was all design artists. Sure they can come up with cool ideas in their renderings, but they have to meet the laws of nature - and that's practically the ME's. It has to be compromised, everything.

Sorry, but I get heated when people say such things. I'm not an engineerer and probably never will be. But there's a school where my brother goes to University of Waterloo, it's in short an "engineering school" it's globally famous and I hear Bill Gates himself goes there once in a while and select people to work for him from Systems Engineering (anecdotal but I wouldn't be surprised). I tell you this because I'm on the more "geek" spectrum; although I do dress a little fashionably I think.. but the students there share a different kind of humor. And I can tell you this since I kind of share that humor, that they're nothing but dull and uncreative. Rather I'll say that my university (UofT) is rather dull and very dry in atmosphere. The people in UofWaterloo have a great conceptualizing skills and abstract thinking. Now if you don't understand the language, of course you're bound to neglect it - I mean it's always easier to just make fun of them/make them look like they're going "wahh wahh wahh" than to humble yourself and try to learn the language.

Now, you could argue back that it's HARDER to be creative in ME than in design art

And if you do, I'll be here to argue back again

I'm not sure how much of this sentence you'll understand but.. here: Truth is everywhere you look.

Pees (spr)out!

[pmarlin]

37

I had to think about it and figure it out, after I hit 30 I quit keeping up with it.

[johnsilver]

I'm 53.

And from the poll results thus far, there are at least 1 and possibly 2 members older than me.

All this means is that I am closer to retirement than most of you. I've already started thinking about what type of shop and tools I'll need when I have full time to devote to WOOD. And naps.

[Drak]

I've been dead 10 times longer than most of you have been alive.

[Prostheta]

Does that mean you were a Friends addict or comatose?

Or are you merely trying to make a distinction between the two?

[croaticum]

I'm 29 and all thouse years on the road are starting to remind me what mistakes have i done

[MiKro]

My body says it's 100....... I'll be 50 in July. Hard times doing stupid sh!t LOL:)))

MK

[fryovanni]

37

I had to think about it and figure it out, after I hit 30 I quit keeping up with it.

I am 37, We must think alike because I have had to look at my drivers license and do the math a couple times.

Peace,Rich

[ooten2]

Yes, it sucks when you have to do the math to remember your age.

Let's see, 2007 - 1963.... uh, er.... uh... (scrambling for a calculator)....

I'm 43 now, 44 in September.

[TheIRS]

Yay i'm in the second younger group.

I turned 20 the september 24th!!

Nice someone who shares my birthday! I turned 17 on that same day.

[WezV]

I'm 26, most people think i'm older - life has not been kind

Actually, i still look 18 when i shave my beard off so looking older is a choice/laziness for me

[cherokee6]

I think the #s are skewed!! The average is is somewhere around 78!! Oops! wrong forum that's the flying club.

[ibanez_crazy]

29.......feel like 50. Broken bones, torn ligaments, arthritis in all of my joints from skateboarding, BMXing, snowboarding, not actually doing all of those things, but from falling:>) ... now it takes me a bit of time to get out of bed, and I aint even 30.