Being born in the early 80's sometimes leaves me with a feeling of being late for the party. I missed, for example, the uninhibited boating culture of Cleveland in the 80's, rafting trips that didn't involve the use of a groover, and being able to eat all the fish I caught without concerns of heavy metal poisoning.
But the part of our history that I look back at with the most envy is the engineering work completed from the period of the industrial revolution until the 1970s. These engineers were faced with one overriding design problem: make it work as best you can and make it last. There was much less effort applied to designing for external factors. For example, product safety, environmental concerns, low-cost off-shore competition, government regulations, and my most hated design constraint: company liability, were not as big of a concern for engineers working in the 1950's. Each design project (I am told) would be almost like a personal project – except one could do it all day for money!
Not sure what I mean? Here are a few products where extra design constraints were clearly not used:
-Fans without much of a protection screen. I can hear it now. “Push all the air possible! People are smart enough not to stick a finger into fast moving metal blades!”
-Boats powered with diesel engines that put out smelly fumes? No problem! Send the raw exhaust underwater at the stern – by the time fumes bubble up, you'll be long gone!
-5-way binding posts for measurement instruments. Notice they don't put these little gems in products anymore? They are so much more useful! And it's not like those 'safety' banana jacks are much better once I cut those stupid plastic shrouds off with my wire cutters.
Before I get too far along in describing how great it must have been to design things that remove fingers and pollute the world, I should recognize that I didn't live or design in that world. I don't know what it was like from experience, but I'd be happy to hear in the comments section if I'm looking at history with rose-tinted glasses. If you were around, what were your experiences?
However even with all of my envy, I still wouldn't call that time the 'golden age' of designing. Far from it. I am happy with the changes that our society has taken on, and I feel good to be one of the engineers working to get higher performance with lower long term costs. I believe that we are not only doing the right thing by taking a longer term approach, but we could go much further in creating a sustainable world. As we learn more about the 'big picture' effects of our designs, their ability to complete the task without damning future generations is a vast improvement. Plus, what I pay for in additional design constraints is more than made up for in the remarkable tools and communication means modern engineers employ. But still, I dream...
