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Engineering

When I went to university to study engineering I soon discovered that the university's notion of engineering was somewhat different to my own. I always thought that engineering was about how things work. Engines, machines generally, electrical and mechanical inventions, and many other things. I still have the belief that engineering is essentially a practical science where ideas are made into fact, and where machines have to work well, in the physical world, rather than just on paper. Engineering is hands-on interactive physics.

I get the impression that the university belief was that engineering was more of a clerical office job, more closely allied to accountancy with a bit of geometry, rather than to workshop practice or invention.

Mechanical Engineering
The nuts and bolts of engineering

Steam Power

Electrical Engineering
Includes Electric and Electronics

Materials Science

Thermodynamics
There's an art to the science of heat.

Architecture, building, and construction

Nanotechnology - big ideas in small machines.

Hydraulics.

The Industrial category also includes plant and machinery, works and industry, and other big scale human endeavours.

Automotive Engineering - see CAR

Creative Engineering involves interaction between ideas and the material world. You invent things, construct them, and test them. Thinking about the results, you refine the ideas and develop the designs, and rebuild or modify the machines, do more tests, and re-evaluate the testing, and so-on in continuation until the creation is good enough or better. The result should be something that works well, preferably better, in ways you decided it should in advance, and preferably in other ways that weren't even in the initial specification.

Footnote to the engineering degree story: Zyra's qualification ended up being in computer science rather than engineering, but a clue to the character's abilities in engineering can be seen in the successful changing of the big ends on a truck, and the inventing and constructing of various machines. More about this on later issues of this site!

In case you are wondering "why haven't they included X ?", it's because this whole area of the site is still being constructed, redesigned, tested, and rebuilt! A similar situation exists at the page of Science, where although there's already quite a lot of it, there's still much more to be added!