My only goal was to pinpoint particular designs and engineering problems I could work on to improve my own skills. As a bonus I was hoping there would be some metric to easily measure my success so as not to fool myself into a competence illusion.
QuoteMy only goal was to pinpoint particular designs and engineering problems I could work on to improve my own skills. As a bonus I was hoping there would be some metric to easily measure my success so as not to fool myself into a competence illusion.In other words.....it would have been much more straightforward to ask what you can do to improve your skills in the firstplace. Unfortunately the answers will not be as straighforward as the question.
there aren't many EEs around or even related companies out there,
No elder with a beard to go ask technical questions to and in terms of buying equipment and components, it is not easy nor cheap to buy stuff.
I want to improve, I feel the necessity to learn the craftsmanship and mastery of the art. I need guidance and I want to be effective in how I use my time. The need for a metric is merely a way to keep myself bounded and be able to see my mistakes, considering that there won't be any mentors around.
I have not yet found my niche within EE, so I would like to keep on exploring.
I would like to improve my analog design skills and embedded system skills.
Real engineers must be able to recognize an impossible design spec, and respond appropriately. (Where 'appropriate' depends on the circumstance.)
This is usually known as the secretary problem. How to choose the best secretary. From what i recall, there is a standard solution which is to interview sqrt(n) candidates, where n is the number of candidates.
You do not take any of these, and then you take the first of the next ones that is better than the previously interviewed.
Here sqrt(n)=10
Ok guys this post has been an epic FAIL . My only goal was to pinpoint particular designs and engineering problems I could work on to improve my own skills. As a bonus I was hoping there would be some metric to easily measure my success so as not to fool myself into a competence illusion.
That's it! The fabricated "hiring somebody" scenario played differently in my head, I though it would be a good way to start the conversation, but I can see now that it was a terrible idea. So please let's forget about it
Real engineers must be able to recognize an impossible design spec, and respond appropriately. (Where 'appropriate' depends on the circumstance.)
In the Electrical Engineering finals papers at Imperial College Professor Eric Laithwaite used to set one question that could not be answered in the available time. He expected his students to recognise and avoid that question.
I wonder if you could get away with that nowadays?
Probably not.
Someone would likely get up in arms about it and challenge the validity of the test on the basis that the discernment necessary was not a core part of the subject being tested and that valiant efforts to answer such a question simply wasted time.
The fact that such decisions need to be faced frequently in the real world would not be considered relevant.
That is, until you get out there.
Seeing mistakes is harder, there are a few threads per month of people posting pcb layouts to have a wider audience reveiw it to catch out all the small things you learn over time, reading a few of them can help refine your understanding.
Completing projects is indeed a good way to quickly build up a knowledge base, expecially when you go outside your compfort zone. For me I learn from others mistakes on this forum, reading up enough to help others through things I walked into with zero knowledge of.
If you want to learn more about embedded and analog. Then you can approach it a few ways, e.g. for the analog, it splits generally into high accuracy or high speed, they both get approached different ways, and there are some amazing free reference guides by various component manufacturers on the subjects.
For the embedded, its going to come down to what flavor. E.g. take a micro, and get it to do something at the lowest power draw. Or getting your hands dirty on the built in peripherals, doing as much in hardware as possible leaving the micro free to compute or log, etc
Real engineers must be able to recognize an impossible design spec, and respond appropriately. (Where 'appropriate' depends on the circumstance.)
In the Electrical Engineering finals papers at Imperial College Professor Eric Laithwaite used to set one question that could not be answered in the available time. He expected his students to recognise and avoid that question.
I wonder if you could get away with that nowadays?
@eecook. Other desirable engineering attributes, are openness, honesty, and not over-thinking problems.
OK, so you are geographically isolated. I can empathize with this. Australia is similar, though not as severe. In any case my own circle of friends now includes not one other ee-engineer, or even any kind of engineer. (Since a good friend died last year.)
So you are 'limited' to what you can gain from the Internet. Be thankful you do have that vast resource, unlike earlier generations (me & my friend) who had no such thing for most of our lives.
Anyway, you've learned something from this. When you have a problem to solve (for eg finding ways to improve your own skills) to get assistance from the international community, best to ask the exact question. Not construct some convoluted scenario that you hope may lead to something relevant to your needs. One thing to _never_ do on the Net, is let yourself be perceived to be devious and misleading.
Real engineers must be able to recognize an impossible design spec, and respond appropriately. (Where 'appropriate' depends on the circumstance.)
In the Electrical Engineering finals papers at Imperial College Professor Eric Laithwaite used to set one question that could not be answered in the available time. He expected his students to recognise and avoid that question.
I wonder if you could get away with that nowadays?
Actually a more complete statement of Laithwaite's position was...
Eric Laithwaite at Imperial College used to set exams where one question was easy and sufficient get you a pass mark, one was more challenging and couuld get you a good degree, and one could not be answered adequately in the time available. He expected his undergraduate engineers to be able to determine which questions to avoid. If they couldn't, they wouldn't make good engineers anyway.
By the way. As others have pointed out, there is NO WAY any engineer is going to do a whole, complex design (eg your solar power supply in a small box) just as an exercise for some skills evaluation.
Another way to find out a lot about what someone knows, is to hand them some random consumer electronics product, or tech instrument, and have them take it apart and give you commentary on how they think it works, what each component does, functional areas of boards, etc. Maybe you could suggest it has various kinds of faults, and ask where they would start looking for the problem.
By the way. As others have pointed out, there is NO WAY any engineer is going to do a whole, complex design (eg your solar power supply in a small box) just as an exercise for some skills evaluation.
If I was asked to do such a thing in an interview I'd go off on a tangent about random design considerations that would go into such a thing. If they didn't like that response then they aren't smart enough to work for.
QuoteAnother way to find out a lot about what someone knows, is to hand them some random consumer electronics product, or tech instrument, and have them take it apart and give you commentary on how they think it works, what each component does, functional areas of boards, etc. Maybe you could suggest it has various kinds of faults, and ask where they would start looking for the problem.
I do that in interviews. I give them a board and say "tell me whatever you can about it". Some need some prompting, and that's ok, but the idea is to see what type of broad knowledge you have, or specific areas of expertise etc. Those can't tell me me anything at all after prompting fail the basic knowledge test.
One of my techniques for design positions was to say "a manufacturer wants us to design a traffic light controller for a 7yo toy car/road set. What do you suggest?". Then we would have a leading conversation based on what they thought of and what the company would do. That two way flow of information was most revealing.
I was once asked, at an company that should have known better, "if you were an ancient Egyptian building the pyramids, how would you know when the shift had ended?". I spent a long time avoiding the "expected" answer, coming up with many alternative workable ideas. I was offered the job, but declined it.