Who do you recognize as an inspirational engineer?

RE: Who do you recognize as an inspirational engineer?

michaelwylie — Thu, 18 Sep 2014 19:53:09 GMT

[mention:b496be9324054b579ff18fd74ba5c3fe:e9ed411860ed4f2ba0265705b8793d05], What's the status of the stickers?

RE: Who do you recognize as an inspirational engineer?

michaelwylie — Mon, 15 Sep 2014 19:42:47 GMT

I PM'd someone about it, but I still never got a reply.

RE: Who do you recognize as an inspirational engineer?

raspberrypython — Mon, 15 Sep 2014 19:36:51 GMT

I got mine pretty quickly, even before the road test I was doing at the same time.

RE: Who do you recognize as an inspirational engineer?

michaelwylie — Tue, 09 Sep 2014 16:16:42 GMT

Were these stickers ever sent out?

RE: Who do you recognize as an inspirational engineer?

Catwell — Sat, 12 Jul 2014 00:06:28 GMT

Greatest of all time is hard to place.... Dennis Richie, Alan Turing, Tesla, Frank Sprague... who knows.

Greatest living... Perhaps John Carmack (of Doom, Wolfenstien and Armadillo Aerospace fame). Elon Musk (Tesla Motors, SpaceX fame).

Cabe

RE: Who do you recognize as an inspirational engineer?

danringer — Fri, 11 Jul 2014 11:43:11 GMT

Adafruit's ladyada, Limor Fried, inspired me to engineering hobbiest. Her website, as well as, sparkfun help us, those without engineering degrees understand and enjoy their passion with their learning tutorials. Thank you to the adafruits, sparkfuns, evil mad scientists, geekgurls, and forest mims who share with us moonlighting in their field.

RE: Who do you recognize as an inspirational engineer?

richms — Fri, 11 Jul 2014 10:10:48 GMT

Limor from Adafruit, Dave Jones, Ben Heck (but as you sponsor him that's probably a given) Chris Boden from the geek group, The Hack a Day team, - way too many to name really.

RE: Who do you recognize as an inspirational engineer?

dougw — Fri, 11 Jul 2014 05:23:15 GMT

Reginald Aubrey Fessenden - one of the least known, most influential inventors of all time. He persevered with his theory that continuous waves could be modulated to send voice over radio, despite disbelief and ridicule by his contemporaries, to eventually send the first voice over radio. That perseverance is a great inspiration ... and look how many voice radios are in use today. He had hundreds of patents, invented sonar, seismology and tracer bullets but his most notable achievements are perhaps: the first audio transmission by radio (1900), the first two-way transatlantic radio transmission (1906), and the first radio broadcast of entertainment and music (1906).

He was a Canadian, but I went through my entire educational career in Canada without ever hearing or seeing his name.

Reginald Fessenden - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

RE: Who do you recognize as an inspirational engineer?

johnbeetem — Fri, 11 Jul 2014 02:50:05 GMT

Like DAB, I'm going to go fictional. My chief inspiration was Cyrus Smith (or Cyrus Harding in some translations), the engineer in Jules Verne's The Mysterious Island (1874). In the book, five Northern prisoners of war escape from the South in a balloon during the then-recent USA Civil War. They land on an island in the South Seas, and it's the encyclopedic knowledge of Cyrus Smith that makes the difference between starvation and a pretty comfortable island adventure.

Here's a quote from Wikipedia:

With the knowledge of the brilliant engineer Smith, the five are able to sustain themselves on the island, producing fire, pottery, bricks, nitroglycerin, iron, a simple electric telegraph, a home on a stony cliffside called "Granite House", and even a seaworthy ship. They also manage to figure out their geographical location.

The wonderful thing about JV's epic is that he describes how all these things were made using only those objects brought with them (including a still-working pocket-watch to determine longitude) and two serviceable watch crystals used to make a magnifying glass to start a fire. It's a tome, but I read it in about 2 days as a young teenager.

Tesla is IMO without doubt the most brilliant electrical scientist ever, but I don't group him with engineers. I had a friend at IBM who as a Yugoslavian was a big Tesla fan. He told me how when Tesla was a student, a professor told the class that all motors had commutators. Tesla raised his hand and asked the prof why couldn't there be a motor without a commutator? The professor sneered at Tesla and said something like: "Well, I can see you'll never amount to anything, young man."

Later that day Tesla was walking in a park with a friend talking about Goethe -- something about circles in circles. Suddenly the idea of the induction motor popped into his head, he made some sketches in the sand with a stick, and the rest is history. I don't know the name of the prof.

By the way, I'd really like those stickers! [View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-c6411663-468a-4c98-9170-ee7f1dd8e84c/contentimage_5F00_1.png:16:16]

RE: Who do you recognize as an inspirational engineer?

DAB — Fri, 11 Jul 2014 02:18:31 GMT

In the original Mission Impossible series, they had a brilliant engineer played by Greg Morris.

Every week I would watch as he built up gizmos to solve the caper of the week. He always portrayed a calm and knowledgeable engineer who made things work.

After that, who wasn't inspired by Scotty on the original Star Trek series played by James Doohan.

Whatever the problem, Scotty came to the rescue.

Once I got into engineering I found many different ranges of engineers, but I always tried to live up to my TV screen idols.

If you get good skills and have the personality to succeed, then you too can become the engineering model for the next generation.

DAB

RE: Who do you recognize as an inspirational engineer?

Former Member — Fri, 11 Jul 2014 01:57:29 GMT

True inspiration comes from yourself. Tesla was a great inventor and engineer, but history often emphasizes his accomplishments and not his downfalls. He was an excellent engineer, but that was one of the few things he was good at. I am inspired (at whatever level) by those who go against what society believes to attempt to accomplish what they think will work, regardless of implications. This could be you, Tesla, or anyone who sees a fault and solution in society. I believe people should find inspiration by ideas and not people. Well, that's all I have to say on the topic.

RE: Who do you recognize as an inspirational engineer?

ipv1 — Thu, 10 Jul 2014 19:12:08 GMT

After Nikola Tesla, I really find Dave Jones an inspiration. His enthusiastic style of teaching and presenting electronics is fantastic. He may sound crazy to some people but the energy with which he delivers content makers you want to work on projects right now.[emoticon:fbd079a1c4f748c5a234faee215de9cc]

RE: Who do you recognize as an inspirational engineer?

raspberrypython — Thu, 10 Jul 2014 17:27:37 GMT

For me its a toss up between Colin Cunningham, and Ben Heckendorn, I absolutely love the mix of music and tech that Colin always brings to the table,not to mention the unique style of his Colin's lab video's. Ben Heckendorns self taught knowledge is pure inspiration for me and drives me to continue learning, and exploring the possibilities that electronics give us.

RE: Who do you recognize as an inspirational engineer?

drobscure — Thu, 10 Jul 2014 16:36:52 GMT

From the old school, I would have to give Nikola Tesla his due as one of the greatest minds to ever benefit mankind, and my personal engineering hero. His work in high frequency electricity is the basis for our modern day power grid as well as lighting (neon and fluorescent), radio, and so much more.. and, if not hindered by our own (banker/oil controlled) government, potentially would have brought us very cheap (ie, almost free!) energy from the Ionosphere -- his towers were for electrical conduction from above, not simple local transmission antennae as has been claimed in the media, etc.. Additionally, I have great respect for Claude Shannon and his work in information theory, and more recently for just plain old great engineering, Mr. Doug Engelbart and his early work on user interfaces (ie, the mouse and the preliminary WIMP interface).. and lest we forget, my personal all around favorite scientist - Albert Einstein: "Imagination is more important than knowledge."

RE: Who do you recognize as an inspirational engineer?

michaelwylie — Thu, 10 Jul 2014 16:36:24 GMT

Without a doubt, Michael Faraday. Although you could argue he wasn’t actually an engineer, and more a scientist, his discoveries have forever changed the world in which we live. His discovery of electromagnetic induction allows power generation on a large scale. Can you imagine our world without this discovery? This man refused to work on chemical weapons when the British government asked and also refused knighthood twice. He is such an inspiration that my son’s middle name is Faraday.