MAE 400 – FALL 2017
Second Individual Essay for MAE 400
• Topic: Roles of Engineers During Product
Lifecycle
IMPORTANT FACT:
Engineers are needed everywhere in technology –
from long lead “pure research” to applied
“research & development” through sales &
marketing support as well as for creatively fixing
old equipment
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Your Topic – Roles of Engineering in
forthcoming Engineering Grand Challenges
“Grand Challenges for Engineering,” the National
Academy of Engineering
Reference:
www.engineeringchallenges.org/cms/challenges.aspx
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Engineering Challenges
• Make solar energy economical –production and storage
• Manage the nitrogen cycle
Engineers can help restore balance to the nitrogen cycle with better
fertilization technologies and by capturing and recycling waste.
• Advance health informatics
Stronger health information systems not only improve everyday medical
visits, but they are essential to counter pandemics and biological or
chemical attacks.
• Prevent nuclear terror
The need for technologies to prevent and respond to a nuclear attack is
growing.
• Advance personalized learning
Instruction can be individualized based on learning styles, speeds, and
interests to make learning more reliable.
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Engineering Challenges
• Provide energy from fusion
Human-engineered fusion has been demonstrated on a small scale. The challenge is
to scale up the process to commercial proportions, in an efficient, economical, and
environmentally benign way.
• Provide access to clean water
The world’s water supplies are facing new threats; affordable, advanced
technologies could make a difference for millions of people around the world.
• Engineer better medicines-Engineers are developing new systems to use genetic
information, sense small changes in the body, assess new drugs, and deliver
vaccines
• Secure cyberspace
It’s more than preventing identity theft. Critical systems in banking, national
security, and physical infrastructure may be at risk.
• Engineer the tools of scientific discovery
In the century ahead, engineers will continue to be partners with scientists in the
great quest for understanding many unanswered questions of nature.
•
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Engineering Challenges
• Develop carbon sequestration methods
Engineers are working on ways to capture and store excess carbon dioxide to
prevent global warming.
• Restore and improve urban infrastructure
Good design and advanced materials can improve transportation and energy, water,
and waste systems, and also create more sustainable urban environments.
• Reverse-engineer the brain
The intersection of engineering and neuroscience promises great advances in health
care, manufacturing, and communication.
• Enhance virtual reality
True virtual reality creates the illusion of actually being in a difference space. It can
be used for training, treatment, and communication.
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Essay Structure – What Paper Should Include
• The student should select (from the list) his or her top challenge facing society
• Intro
– You need to explain what this challenge is, and what sort of technology does this challenge entail
– Please include a writeup discussing why you think this topic is important
• Explain the many and varied roles that Engineers play during the Lifecycle of
this Technology
– Select three roles engineers can fulfill in addressing the challenge.
– Example roles:
• Researcher
• Designer
• Project Manager
• Systems Engineer
• Sales Engineer
• Manufacturing Engineer
• Marketing Engineer
• Product Support Engineer
• Sum up why no one type of engineer can do everything!
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Role of Engineer Paper
• For each role, the student should describe what
the engineer would be doing to address the
challenge.
– The emphasis here is NOT so much on the engineering
solution, but what engineers need to do…
– Example:
• For renewable energy, a design engineer could optimize the
configuration of a PV solar power plant by reducing the weight
of the aluminum support structure for the concentrating
mirrors. This would reduce the cost-of-electricity….
• Consider what engineers ahead of and behind the design
engineer need to do!
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Role of Engineer Paper
• Continue to follow the Style Guide (spacing,
margins, exec summary, APA format
references)
• There should be at least two direct quotes in
the paper. Facts and thoughts that are not the
student’s MUST be referenced.
• The paper should be long enough to adequately
cover the assignment, but concise enough to
hold the reader’s attention.
– Please keep it around 1,200 words. Slide 144
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Things to think about when writing
• Are the challenges reasonable?
– Are the roles of the engineer inherently reasonable?
– How you explain your reasoning when you write
• Do you jump from topic to conclusion with no discussion?
• Do you “ramble” all over the place?
• Do you present several arguments and counter arguments?
• You need to cite other sources, not just your
opinion
– Make sure there are least two direct quotes
– Use the quotes to make your argument more effective.
• You can agree or disagree with the quotes
• Make sure your paper is concise yet complete
– Hold to word limit
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When we grade you…
• Remember!
– These papers do not have one “correct” answer!
– But to get full credit you need to make sure that
• Your paper follows the Style Guide
• You don’t have misssspellings, odd
cApitaLization,, strange punctuation and other
typographical errors!
• Your logical arguments “flow” and make sense
• If you present facts and opinions other than the
your own, that they are referenced!
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