• Question: What was your first ever project as an engineer?

    Asked by Edgeircanine428 to Chris, Paul, Priyanka, Ryan, Sarah on 9 Mar 2016.
    • Photo: Christine Coonick

      Christine Coonick answered on 9 Mar 2016:


      Great question,

      My first project was to design a solar powered home for bats. Sounds bonkers, but there was good sound scientific reasoning behind it. Basically my client was looking to rehouse bats so they could develop a property and were looking at ways of creating a more attractive place for the bats to live, so they thought that by making a heated dark box the bats would really want to move. I just designed a little solar power system to go on top to provide the heat.

      Technically the bat box worked, but I don’t think the bats wanted to move into it though.

    • Photo: Sarah Hargreaves

      Sarah Hargreaves answered on 10 Mar 2016:


      My first ever project as an Engineer was working on the design of a helicopter for the American President, Barack Obama. Our team was looking at the equipment which was to be put on-board and calculating how much it weighed, so we could decide where to put it.

      On an helicopter it is really important that you know where the centre of mass is, as if it is not in the right place then the helicopter will not fly straight and could lead to a crash.

    • Photo: Priyanka Dhopade

      Priyanka Dhopade answered on 10 Mar 2016:


      My first ever project as an engineer was also working on a helicopter, though not nearly as exciting as Sarah’s project!
      I had to analyse the flow of the air that gets sucked into the engine near the top of the helicopter, using a computer model. This is the air that drives the rotating blades at the top so it’s important to know if the air is entering the engine correctly.

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