Daughter of an Engineer

I am the daughter of an engineer. This didn’t particularly occur to me as anything special when I was growing up. Mostly I was just annoyed that my dad no longer worked for the chocolate factory (the one that made Cherry Ripes) on maintaining their machinery so we didn’t get any free chocolate. By that time he had retrained and was working as a supply officer in an office for a gas company (so we did get free dry ice and free liquid nitrogen for science lessons occasionally – very funky, dip a leaf in liquid nitrogen and drop it and it shatters, dip a feather in liquid nitrogen and drop it and it doesn’t shatter – no water in it to freeze!). But, once an engineer, always an engineer – my dad is an engineer.

This clearly had an impact on me. Arguably slightly less of an impact than the fact that I am also the daughter of a teacher, but an impact nonetheless.

I remember being on a bus in China and the man next to me (who was a local) was unable to open the window. I was able to reach over and show him how to open the window. It was clear to me that the thing for opening the window invited the user to slide it, so slide it I did (he had tried pushing, pulling and twisting). On another occasion in the UK I was travelling with someone when we got a flat tyre. He had never changed a tyre before. I knew how to do it, I just didn’t posses the physical strength. Between the two of us, we did finally manage it because I was able to work out what had to be done and he could actually do the thing.

There are a number of instances here on project where I’m struck by how useful it is to be the daughter of an engineer. Here are some of the things I’ve noticed or found obvious, that others found less obvious (note: there is a whole lot of stuff happening on site that has not been obvious to me but that is obvious to others and that list is almost certainly significantly longer than this list, but this list exists nonetheless).

• If the power tool you are using (a drop saw) has the space to clamp the rebar in place then it is probably a good idea to clamp it in place.
• If you are clamping the rebar in place then it’ll be much more successful if you have the rebar quite parallel to the plates you are clamping between (rather than coming in on an angle so that the clamp doesn’t actually hold the rebar in place).
• If you are dropping a blade onto the rebar then you want to have the rebar clamped down against the bottom plate (so that the blade doesn’t start by pushing the rebar down before cutting it).
• If you are painting a waterproofing solution onto the walls (water, additive, cement) and you discover that the painting tray has a lot of sludge at the bottom this isn’t just a case of remixing it and using something better for the next bit, it is also a concern that the stuff you have been painting is clearly too weak (far too much water and not enough of the cement that has obviously dropped out of solution) so you’ll need to redo that most recent bit.
• If you are about to fill an empty wheelbarrow with sand or gravel and then move it to somewhere else then it makes sense to make sure the wheelbarrow is turned around and facing the destination whilst empty, rather than filling it and trying to do a 180 degree turn with a full wheelbarrow.
• Centre of mass is a thing. Every object or set of objects has a centre of mass. Being able to guess where that might be is quite helpful to avoid things toppling, falling, spinning, sliding, etc.
• Triangles are a strong shape, rectangles less so, unless they are braced and become two (or more) triangles.
• When drawing a line against the edge of a ruler or piece of board, tilting the pen/pencil so that the point is hard against the edge is a good idea – otherwise your line may be off by a few millimetres (likewise if you’re using a knife to cut a straight line against a rule or board).
• Maths in theory is different from maths in practice. In theory there is no difference between theory and practice, in practice, there is. I can’t claim original credit for this line, I definitely stole it of someone more witty. I’ve just checked, Yogi Berra apparently (who is definitely a baseball player and not a cartoon bear – though Yogi Bear did also say lots of witty and insightful things and was named after Yogi Berra anyway).

As I said, there are a lot of things that others find obvious that are new to me but there are definite advantages to being the daughter of the engineer. I see the world through a different lens than I would do otherwise and for that I am very grateful.