How Do You Engineer?

We're back, the podcast that offers you such an amazing engineering education that you just can't leave. If you've ever wanted to leave a software platform, hardware experience, or podcast but just don't feel like you want to risk it...we're here to help. If you have experience taking on a new technology and want to share, hit us up in the comments or on Facebook. Royalty free music from BenSound.

The holidays are a time for family, friends, food... and stuff. A lot of stuff. Prompted by a study that revealed that the average child receives over 70 presents a year, we set out to design one gift for each popular gift-giving demographic.  Things We Mentioned: BeatBo Cozmo Virtual Grafitti with Tilt Brush Lincoln Chauffeur Sounds effects thanks to Mike Koenig.

This week we discuss our relationship with technology as consumers. Each of us has a different reaction to the idea of investing in a new technology, ranging from anxious obsession to zen acceptance. We talk about today's exciting cutting edge technologies in personal electronics and home automation, and whether we would pay for them or wait to see how the industry matures. Royalty free music from BenSound.

This week we talk a little about the last couple years of podcasting, but more about how our careers changed over the years. Hopefully you'll get some insight into how engineering roles morph over time to lead you in new and exciting directions. Simon also makes a very obscure joke at the beginning of the episode related to one of my favorite commercials of all time. Royalty free music from BenSound.

Many people have expressed disappointment in The Giant Robot Duel that took place earlier this week; the robots moved too slowly, there were too many safety precautions in place... basically it was kind of boring. In this week's podcast we take inspiration from the robot battle to answer the question, how do we make a tech sport that people actually want to watch? Pete wants robot obstacle courses, Abbey wants a sport to play with friends, and Simon wants to defend his title as the "best robot fighter in this hood." From drone racing to drifting power wheels, we breakdown what tech sports people actually care about. Links: The Giant Robot Duel The Giant Robot Duel Was Underwhelming… And That’s Okay Puppy Superbowl Cellular Automaton Game of Life The Swedish Chef Sounds Norwegian Royalty free music from BenSound.

We're back! Well, Pete and Simon are back to talk about current events. If you are an engineer, you probably find yourself idly trying to imagine how you would use your engineering skills to help make life better in the wake of natural disasters. In this episode, we indulge this impulse and discuss how we could design living spaces to survive hurricanes and other natural disasters. We discuss arcologies, shipping containers, and for some reason, doughnuts. This is an episode where we would particularly like to hear some input from our listeners because we make no claim to be experts in any of the fields we are discussing. This is just two engineers thinking about how we would engineer. So if you know more about urban planning or emergency relief than us (and that wouldn't be hard) please feel free to join the conversation on our facebook page or in the comments below. Some things we mentioned in the episode: Arcologies Snoozebox (Pop-up hotel) Tempohousing (Shipping container housing) Flood-Resistant Building Design Royalty free music from BenSound.

This week we premiere a "new" episode format: Good Question! Simon read a thing on the internet that raised a question about whether AI should be required to speak human language. Our conversation spirals down a winding road, and doesn't really end in any life altering revelations, but it's an interesting journey. Our conversation is inspired by this article, and this one.  Royalty free music from BenSound.

In Canada we have a legal responsibility as engineers for the people that use our designs, but do we have an ethical responsibility as well? This week we ask a lot of questions, but arrive at very few answers. Prompted by this episode of Radiolab, we discuss the moral and ethical implications of R&D. If any platform can be misused, at what point do you shut it down? And whose job is it to make that decision?  If there is one thing we can all agree on, it is that engineers need to think more. Royalty free music from BenSound.

This week everyone is in attendance again as we go back to basics and take a look at the fundamental concept of design. What does it mean to design? How do we learn to be designers? Does an engineering education prepare one to design well? Answers to almost none of these questions and much much more await you. Honestly this is really just scratching the surface, but we hope it will start some really interesting conversations in the future. Hope you enjoy! Royalty free music from BenSound.

We're Back!From our summer vacation (except for Simon), we return to podcasting with an update on the Tesla Model 3, and ventures in general. Abbey and Pete chat about the potential for electric cars, trains, and other dreams of an 8 year old Elon Musk. In other news, we're back on iTunes. Please rate us so that we can regain our rating, and listeners! We really appreciate it! Royalty free music from BenSound.

Prosthesis are designed to replace lost or missing body parts, but what if they could do more? Inspired by The Third Thumb prosthetic, this week we discuss the possibility of enhancing human ability with various prostheses. Pete wants a prehensile tail, while Abbey just wants to flip through a book without using her arms. We describe (possibly dangerous) experiments with pure oxygen, and Simon discusses why gills are his top choice. We mentioned a lot of neat projects in this episode. Here are the links. The Third Thumb MIT Robotic Arms The Luke Arm I Listen to Color TED Talk Vibration Vest for the Blind We're going to be selling t-shirts! Royalty free music from BenSound.

Welcome back to the past. Now that we have secured a good standard of living with light, heat, shelter and books, we have to spread the word. That requires a way to communicate information over long distances. We didn't want to rely on the actual historical method of guys on horses, so instead we tried to make semaphore, telegraph, and even a tiny underground message service.As usual it's a little knowledge spread really thin. Hope you enjoy it.In case you are wondering after listening, this is what a paternoster lift looks like and yes, chairlifts do detach from the cable using a mechanism that looks like this.We're going to be selling t-shirts! Royalty free music from BenSound.

What is your favorite programming language, and what would you change to make it better? Those are the questions that we ask this week. Abbey talks a bit about creating graphical UI designs using XML, and Pete and Simon share their experiences with graphical programming. We compile our experiences, and parse their meaning before we assemble it all together.Pete and Simon talk about LabVIEW for a while. Pete mentions Microsoft Robotics Development Studio.Simon closes with a history lesson on VHS.We're going to be selling t-shirts! Royalty free music from BenSound.

This episode we got together to talk about nothing... but we ended up talking about too much. Too much work, that is. When opportunity comes knocking, how do you say no? This week we discuss managing our time, and every one else's expectations. Pete explains how to be a manager using a (perfectly accurate) sports analogy, and we talk about when to burn a project to the ground and rebuild. Remember engineers: in the end it's about saying no to yourself.  Royalty free music from BenSound.

We've been talking about doing this episode for a while, but wanted to prepare our thoughts a little beforehand. Engineering has been understood for years to have a serious problem with diversity. We don't necessarily have the same ideas, and we almost certainly don't share all of your ideas, but we thought that it is important to discuss the issues and possible solutions to try to see where we come to.We've got lots of questions, and for the time being not many answers, but it's a start. We'd love to hear from you here in the comments or on Facebook if you'd like to share your thoughts and experiences with us. Royalty free music from BenSound.

Our trips to the year zero are back. This week we return to the past and create the world's first 'zine. We start by trying to encode data for longevity. In an attempt to keep to a reasonable episode length we decided to limit the problem to reproducing text data for distribution. Soon we have a solution for spreading our propaganda across the ancient world. As usual we run around in circles and come up with a half-reasonable solution.Also for the first time in a while we address some listener feedback! Royalty free music from BenSound.

This week we travelled to big, scary Manhattan to talk to long-time guest and friend of the show, Safwan. Safwan joined us from his fancy office to discuss deep learning, AI, and the steamballing effects of big data. But before we can get there, we have to find the best way to navigate through the building. This episode involved a lot of name dropping, so here are some links for more information:ConceptsDeep LearningSupport Vector MachineArtificial Neural NetworkGenerative Adversarial NetworksConvolutional NetworksPython StuffPythonProject JupyterBig Data PlatformsApache SparkDeep Learning PlatformsTensorFlowOtherGravatarExabyteAmazon Data TruckDeepBach Music AICanadian Konami Code Royalty free music from BenSound.

How much private information are you willing to give away in exchange for services or discounts? We start off this week discussing how insurance companies trade information on you and your habits in exchange for discounts, but soon branch off in all directions related to privacy and security.Pete was talking about Samsung TVs tracking what you watch, but it was VISIO...sorry Samsung. If you're interested, this is the insurance plan that Pete has and this is the fitness tracker he got. Royalty free music from BenSound. 

This week, we follow our love of words and look at one of Simon's favourite words: "Skeuomorphism." It's a five dollar word for a concept that you might know more about than you think. We jump off of the idea of skeuomorphs into a conversation on the general future of software interfaces (as we often do) so if you're into that, we have a podcast for you.So join us, learn a cool concept, and impress your friends.In case you are wondering, the reading tool Simon mentions in the podcast is called Spritz, and it is pretty much the opposite of skeuomorphism. Image by Klaus GöttlingRoyalty free music from BenSound.

Hey everyone! Due to some conflicts with travel and scheduling upcoming guests, we're going to switch to an every-other-week (biweekly) schedule until things calm down in May. Thanks for understanding, and for listening. We really appreciate it. Maybe take a look back into the archive if you're starved for engineering content. This was one of my favorites.Talk to you next week!