Marvels of Engineering - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Armin_Balija
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 18, 2011, 06:45:33 pm
content: I'm coming up on my 3rd year of Engineering school and still whenever I look at a teardown of an Oscilloscope, Function Generator, and other PCB's clad with FPGA's and tons of passive components, I always wonder to myself how in the world it all came to gather. I literally stand in AWE of the mental prowess of the Engineers at these Engineering companies.How do they do it? How do they conceptualize and then implement such complex designs and know each and every value of every component on their boards? Do they split up each thing into sections and then bring it all together in the end? How do they engineer new concepts and implement them in cutting edge designs?It literally never ceases to amaze me. Does it become less impressive the more education and experience you get when you work in industry?

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 18, 2011, 06:56:44 pm
content: Marvels of Engineering? you should look at how human brain, nervous and motor system works, thats engineering!

author: Bored@Work
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 18, 2011, 07:21:06 pm
content: Quote from: Armin_Balija on November 18, 2011, 06:45:33 pmDivide et impera.

author: BravoV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 18, 2011, 07:24:59 pm
content: Quote from: Mechatrommer on November 18, 2011, 06:56:44 pmNo doubt about that, its where all these things came from.But for engineering work, imo from single person point of view, they are way too much for our single tiny brain to digest and definitely it will be overwhelmed, remember, those came from many-many brains.Not only in electronic field, another extreme example that I'm still deeply impressed is jet engine, long time ago invited by a friend who was working at hangar in repairing huge commercial jet engines, I just can't forget the amazing scene of a huge very complex mechanical engine hanging in front of me. Those bits & pieces are precision piece of work, yet they have to endure at high stress, high mechanical vibration and in very-very hot temperature, and they're expected to work flawlessly like a perfect orchestra every time the plane took off, its human life we talking here.These pictures (randomly grabbed from google) though look amazing, they just don't do the justice, you have to see the real thing in front of your eyes to appreciate the truly piece of engineering work that human life depends on when every time they're turned on.

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 18, 2011, 07:43:26 pm
content: Quote from: BravoV on November 18, 2011, 07:24:59 pmi'm not so sure. human brain is designed to cope with what we aware only in 10% or so region, its more complex than we can think of. its just its too slow to process information. i would say if 10 brains can do a job in 1 fraction of time, a 1 brain can do the same job in 10 fraction of time. the simplest method i know to design such complex engineering system is by "command and conquer" or "modular" approach, where the system is divided or separated by their logical functions during design process, and later combined in final product.

author: Lawsen
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 18, 2011, 07:50:11 pm
content: Try to understand a marvel machine by its components and small part at a time. Imagine how each part or groups of parts and components come together.

author: don.r
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 18, 2011, 11:31:05 pm
content: Quote from: BoredAtWork on November 18, 2011, 07:21:06 pmYes. Never underestimate the collective brainpower of 100 engineers well organized.In some cases, however, I look at a product and wonder what the intern did for the other 7 hours in the day.

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 19, 2011, 02:25:40 am
content: "Never try to eat an elephant in one sitting."So you look at an oscilloscope, and stepping back a bit you see that it consists of three or four major sections. You take one of those sections, figure out what it is supposed to do, and ignore all the other sections. For each section, most likely it decomposes into functional blocks. So you take one block at a time, and ignore the other blocks. And keep going.Basically, what everyone else said.Truthfully, oscilloscopes are easy. More interesting is how did someone design something like this, since in this case it is not so obvious how to decompose it into parts:

author: Armin_Balija
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 19, 2011, 03:53:04 am
content: Quote from: IanB on November 19, 2011, 02:25:40 amThose are those old mechanical calculators! I've seen some BBC program on those it was really interesting. If I recall correctly it could multiply and divide two numbers by repeated addition or subtraction. It was pretty cool!I still feel like even though there are functional blocks that can be broken down... electrical engineering is one of the hardest sciences to master because what you're working with is at the sub-atomic level!

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 19, 2011, 04:59:11 am
content: Quote from: Armin_Balija on November 19, 2011, 03:53:04 amtry physics or chemistry

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 19, 2011, 07:16:57 am
content: Quote from: Armin_Balija on November 19, 2011, 03:53:04 amBut repeated addition or subtraction is how machines do multiplication and division!If you look inside the arithmetic unit of any CPU you will find the same basic algorithm (except it's in binary, and there may be some clever shortcuts).

author: Armin_Balija
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 19, 2011, 07:43:35 am
content: Quote from: IanB on November 19, 2011, 07:16:57 amYeah, we're working on that stuff right now in digital. Half adders and Full adders, Counters, etc. Basic stuff, really interesting though. I always saw digital logic as a sort of hardware based programming language. You set up the hardware just as if you were writing a program.Anyway, those old mechanical calculators are awesome, I wonder how much machining the guy had to do to make the first one

author: mikeselectricstuff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 19, 2011, 10:09:41 am
content: I'd highly recommend anyone interested in engineering to watch this BBC programme about the Rolls Royce jet engine manufacturing process. The details of how things like the blades are made are just incredible!Part 1Part 2Part 3Part 4

author: don.r
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 19, 2011, 03:38:17 pm
content: Quote from: IanB on November 19, 2011, 07:16:57 amLike when you need to multiply or divide by a multiple of 2.

author: Unknown
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 19, 2011, 04:46:07 pm
content: No wonder 64-bit math is slower than 32-bit, squaring 2^32-1 will take about 4 billion operations, compared to just 65 thousand for 2^16-1.

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 19, 2011, 06:05:59 pm
content: Quote from: alm on November 19, 2011, 04:46:07 pmNot sure if there is a missing smiley in this post, but squaring a 16 bit value takes a maximum of 16 operations and a 32 bit value takes 32 operations. The length of time is basically proportional to the number of bits in the number.Actually the smallest atomic operation when adding two numbers is adding two individual bits to produce a third bit plus a carry bit. Adding two 16 bit numbers requires 16 of these atomic single bit additions, but they all occur in parallel at almost the same time. They can't happen exactly at the same time because you can't add the higher order bits until you have the carry available from the lower order bits, so in a simple machine the additions have to be cascaded literally bit by bit. However real machines have clever designs to avoid this need to ripple along the bits and adding two 16 bit numbers can be performed as a single atomic operation on production hardware.

author: Unknown
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 19, 2011, 06:20:35 pm
content: I was referring to the statement that multiplication is implemented as repeated addition. Math with integers of this size would be insanely inefficient with that algorithm (O(2n)).

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 19, 2011, 06:33:34 pm
content: It's repeated addition in the way the electro-mechanical calculator in the video does it--the additions are of course shifted (10's, 100's, 1000's) according to the significance of each digit (as I know you know)When you watch the calculator doing division you can actually see how it works. It first subtracts from the most significant position until the result register goes negative (a bunch of 9's appear on the left), then it undoes the last subtraction, shifts the divisor to the right one place, and starts subtracting again. It repeats this until it has reached the least significant position and then stops.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 19, 2011, 06:49:42 pm
content: Quote from: Mechatrommer on November 18, 2011, 07:43:26 pmThe idea that the average humans only uses 10% of their brain is total bollocks, someone with only 10% of the normal brain mass would be severely mentally retarded and have a lower IQ than a dog.

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 19, 2011, 07:23:18 pm
content: Quote from: Hero999 on November 19, 2011, 06:49:42 pmbut we are able to understand and remember every book on the planet if we are given the chance to read and a long life time. i never heard a person complained his hardisk in his brain is full.

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 19, 2011, 11:03:56 pm
content: Quote from: Mechatrommer on November 19, 2011, 07:23:18 pmThat's because our brain has a "lossy" memory. It periodically clears out old stuff to make room for new stuff. But why don't we remember what our brain has deleted from storage? Because we have forgotten it of course!

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 20, 2011, 06:35:35 am
content: and for a very complex design done by a single person, maybe it is possible to forget how its started? i wish there's some childhood memory being deleted from the harddisk to make room for other usefull stuff

author: tbscope
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: November 20, 2011, 12:27:23 pm
content: As an engineer you should by now already understand that very little is done from scratch.When was the first oscilloscope made? How many years are there between the first one and the current ones?When it comes to complex machines, they always are an evolution of previous machines. And complex problems are always split up in managable parts.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 20, 2011, 04:21:19 pm
content: People also find it harder to remember new things as they get older.

author: FreeThinker
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 20, 2011, 05:00:08 pm
content: When asked about how he came up with his theory's Albert Einstien is quoted as saying 'By standing on the shoulders of giants'. Says it all really.

author: robrenz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 20, 2011, 06:03:02 pm
content: I have always though of brain memory being like static ram that can become ROM if refreshed enough. Also if the refresh includes hands on and experimentation it becomes ROM much faster. A big AH HA light bulb moment is often indelibly burned into memory.

author: Zad
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 20, 2011, 11:30:05 pm
content: If you have a department with 100 engineers in it which all have equal input, it will cost a fortune to run and years to get anywhere. However, if you have one experienced and skilled bloke (or blokette) leading it, there will be a structure and an inherent division of labour, with good control over the process. This is where you earn your money as an engineer, rather than someone who just hacks stuff together. All the important projects are run by small teams which identify an architecture and then issue relevant specifications to teams.It can't just be me who grew up wondering how things worked. For all the ease of use that the Internet has brought, nothing compares with reading through a "how it works" book to teach all sorts of engineering concepts. The first thing I would think when I saw something new was "if I were to design something like that, how would I do it?" which should give you a good starting point when studying the internals of something.