Engineering at Dordt College

Henry Petroski has a new book out, titled The Essential Engineer: Why Science Alone Will Not Solve Our Global Problems.  One of the themes in the book is that scientists are interested in understanding—that is, knowing things about—nature. In contrast, engineers are interested in creatively doing things in new ways. It is commonly held by many people that engineering is an applied science, but Petroski disagrees. He writes that science does not, “precede engineering in the creative process.” Without doing engineering, scientists would not have the tools and instruments necessary for their work. I fully agree with this perspective.

Today I was reviewing some material that I will use in Dordt’s EGR 104 Introduction to Engineering Design class in a few weeks and was again reminded of the central theme of Petroski’s new book.  The material I was reviewing was a clip from the PBS program, “Nova: Science Now” on the topic of fuel-cell powered automobiles.  This clip is really about engineering, but as seems to be the typical stereotype, it is described in the clip as, “science.” Even the title of the program would lead you to believe that this is all about science, when really it is all about engineering. Maybe you say that the science is foundational. After all, without the knowledge of chemistry, where would we be with fuel cell technology? True, engineers need to know science, but false, science is not foundational.  Without engineering—without a desire to creatively reduce pollution with a new fuel—who would think about designing a fuel cell? Science is important, but it does not deserve to be seen as foundational to engineering.

Here is another example.  Many people think of the 1969 lunar landing as a triumph of science.  For example, a web site called interestingly enough, Science Monster, offers a lunar lander game.  I judge that most people would say this game is related to science.  But, planning for a lunar landing, designing the spacecraft, and operating the spacecraft were all activities performed primarily by engineers.  To wit, Neil Armstrong, the first person to walk on the moon, is an engineer.

Consider heart disease research. Is that science? Yes, partly. It is also engineering, maybe mainly engineering. There is even a branch of engineering called biomedical engineering. Is the inventor of the heart pacemaker a scientist? No, Earl Bakken is an engineer.

If you wonder what it is about being an engineer that excites me, it is planning for and doing things that solve technical problems and help people!

Engineering at its core is about creativity and design.  The joy of a completed project is really amazing.  When the electric car project successfully rolled out of the shop on May 6, for the first time fully on electric power, the students on that project started whooping it up, running around, and even jumping for joy.  My students “saw that it was good.”  I wished I had a camera with me to record that exuberant moment but I did not.  Instead, I’ve tried to convey the joy of success at an engineering project via the stock photo above.  (From http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1033778 )

Many times have I talked to someone, usually a parent or teacher, who tells me of a young person who is, “really really good at math and science,” and recommends that this person would make a good engineer. This is a typical stereotype of engineering—that engineering is all about math and science.  Some engineering colleges are even located in the “Math and Applied Science Building” or “Math and Applied Science Division.”  That’s a really superficial view of Engineering.  Talent in math and science helps, but that’s not the whole story.  Sometimes students who have average talents at math and science do really well at engineering because they are creative.

Let me get back to that feeling of joy upon completion of a project. . . (I want to successfully finish another project!)  This joy in creativity is part of our humanity.  We are created in God’s image and God is a creative God.  Our creativity is a reflection of God’s creativity.

But there’s more.  God’s creativity is rooted in His love.  In the Genesis creation story each day ends with, “and God saw that it was good.”  At the end of Genesis 1, “God saw all that He had made, and it was very good.”  That sounds to me like a kind of love for all of creation.  We are part of God’s creation.  When we glorify Him in our lives, God is also joyful.  The origin of true joy is God.  The joy of creatively solving technical problems is what good engineering is really about.

Engineering—it provides a way to do your best dreams.

Postscript:

*The slogan, “Engineering: because dreams need doing,” is proposed by the National Academy of Engineering.  Other proposed slogans are:

“A limitless imagination”

“An enterprising spirit”

“Free to explore”

“Ideas in action”

“Shape the future”

“Life takes engineering”

(Reference: Committee on Public Understanding of Engineering Messages, National Academy of Engineering, Changing the Conversation:Messages for Improving Public Understanding of Engineering, Published by the National Academies Press, 2008, available: http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12187)

The Sioux City Journal covered the electric car project in a front-page story.  The text of the March 7 Journal story can be found here.

(Somehow this post was accidentally deleted from the blog. It was originally posted in January.)
I’ve received a number of questions about the electrical vehicle project. Last semester the students did planning and preparation for this project. This semester, starting on Saturday, January 17, the students got started with the dirty part of the project, removing the gasoline engine. The Engine is now out. In a sense that was the easy part of the project because obviously it has to be done. On the other hand, the students learned a lot about front suspensions and other parts of the car from their experience disassembling the car.

The students decided to remove the engine and transmission as a unit since it will then be easier to mate the electric motor to the transmission on a workbench. This required them to disassemble of much of the front suspension (tie rods, control arms, etc.) in order to remove the axles and free the transmission of the wheels. Then they had a choice of lifting the engine/transmission assembly out the top or raising the car and lowering the engine/transmission out the bottom. The engine mounts face downward, making a bottom exit more obvious, but then we would have to arrange for a lift. Instead the students removed two of the engine mounts from both the engine and the body and then used a “cherry picker” (a type of crane) to lift the engine/transmission out the top.

In the photo above you can now see that the car is (temporarily) human powered!
I’ll continue to report on the progress of this project and other matters in future posts.

Some decisions now need to be made such as exactly which brand and type of battery to use. Your comments are welcome.

This summer as I traveled I heard a number of opinions regarding the use of ethanol to fuel cars. Some are for it in order to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels. Some are for it to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. (Ethanol might burn with less pollution than gasoline.) Others are against it since there is a shortage of food in various parts of the world. The ethanol industry has driven the price of corn way up in the past year. In turn the price of other commodities like soybeans and rice have tracked the price of corn upwards. Thus all of us are paying more for food, which is not good for the poor people in the world, to understate the problem. Opponents of ethanol cry “Don’t burn our food!” (Maybe you think gasoline prices are the big problem now?)

Consider this however: In order to grow corn, soybeans, rice, or practically any plant, we generally use petroleum dependent methods. The fertilizer, herbicides, and pesticides we use are petroleum-based. The tractors and combines that plant, cultivate, and harvest the crops run on diesel or gasoline. After harvesting, the processing and distribution of most crops also rely heavily on gasoline or diesel.

Increases in farm crop yields correspond very nicely with the introduction of petroleum based farming starting in the 1930’s. Some people call this “high input farming.” For example, corn yields in Indiana were about 20 to 40 bushels per acre from the late 1800’s through 1930 and the trend was pretty flat. Farmers now consider 140 bushels per acre a poor yield. Here in Sioux County, Iowa, 160 bushels per acre is common. Considering that the availability of corn and soybeans depends heavily on “high input farming” (and on improved genetics, especially in the recent decades), to a degree we are eating our fuel. What farms do is convert petroleum products such as fertilizer, pesticides, and diesel, to food. Yes, sunlight contributes something important too, but modern farming practiced without the petroleum inputs would cause yields to plummet and probably at least half of our food supply would go away. Farming practices could be changed to improve the yields without high-input practices, but it would take take time to develop the new hybrids and farm practices needed to approach the yields now achieved. And given that in the future we might have good farm yields without high inputs of petroleum products, we can then engineer systems to more efficiently produce fuel from crops.

The high cost of petroleum products poses a complicated challenge. It is partly a technical challenge. It is also a political and even a spiritual challenge to be sure that there is enough to eat. An engineering degree is one good way to participate in helping to provide food and fuel. An engineering degree from Dordt College is better. Here you will study these issues in a Christian context.