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SO YOU WANT TO GET STARTED WITH ENGINEERING! Engineers are people who design and invent new products and processes. They improve life by building solutions to problems in the natural world. They use tools and technologies in their daily work. And they team up on projects with scientists, government officials, and business people.

Many grand challenges await you in the world of engineering: making better use of solar energy; creating new types of transportation; securing cyberspace; designing better medicines; providing the world with clean drinking water; applying the function of the brain to computers; inventing new ways to teach people; and improving virtual reality. It’s never too early to start, so roll up your sleeves and get ready to work as a junior engineer!

ABOUT THIS BOOK

Engineering is a hands-on field. When you work in engineering, you will use your body as much as you use your brain. In this book, you have opportunities to do both! Sometimes you'll use your eyes and your fingers to work in a small, careful way. An example is using a needle and thread to sew a wearable electronic circuit with LED lights and a battery onto a baseball cap. Other times, you'll use your lungs, legs, and arms to work in a big, athletic way. An example is blowing up balloons to serve as air bags on a Mars lander, and then running up the stairs and hurling the lander off the second floor to (what I hope is) a soft landing on the planetary surface below.

But you'll also use your brain quite a bit. You'll do some online research to learn about engineering projects that have been done before – and how they succeeded or failed. You'll use computer simulations to tinker with a product or a process to learn how it operates. In this way, you can try different ways of building or different ways of conducting a process – before you do them in the real world. You'll brainstorm and draw design plans in your design notebook and then write down how those plans perform and how you can improve them.

Here’s what you need to do the projects in this book:

A computer running a modern version of a Windows or Mac OS X operating system

A reasonably fast Internet connection

Some household items, such as foil pans, scissors, a trash bag, tape, a marble, a meter stick, clear plastic wrap, tape, a dog leash, kitty litter, cotton balls, an ear syringe, a thermometer, liquid dishwashing soap, and a kitchen scale (plus a few more items)

Some food items, such as marshmallows, graham crackers, canola oil, and assorted pasta

Some home improvement store items, such as foam tubing, PVC elbows, string, sand, and perlite

Some craft store items, such as craft foam, pipe cleaners, hay, a hot-glue gun, feathers, and faux fur

One specialty purchase (LilyTwinkle electronics kit for $20) and, optionally, the use of a 3D printer

Some safety gear, namely goggles, protective gloves, and a face mask

Courtesy of Logovski/Getty

One design notebook, which can be any notebook with paper or graph paper, to draw designs and write evaluations of your products and processes and how to improve them; you can also print photos of your work and paste them into your notebook (optional)

If you’re reading this as an ebook, you can click web addresses, such as www.dummies.com, to visit that website.

Every project follows the Engineering Design Cycle, or Engineering Cycle. This process is different from the Scientific Method, which you probably learned in school. I explain the Engineering Cycle in Project 1.

My design sketches are meant to spark your imagination. Your engineering designs may look very much the same or very different from my designs. Your ideas are valuable and I want you to have faith in them. Brainstorm, invent, and build!

Finally, every project wraps up with a section called the Iron Triangle of Engineering. This section helps you think about what real engineers consider when doing that type of project.

ABOUT YOU

Every junior engineer has to start somewhere. When I wrote this book, I assumed that you can

Type on a computer and use a mouse. Your experience can be on a Windows or a Mac system. The simulations you use in this book are computer based (not apps on a mobile device).

Read and follow directions. Each project consists of a sequence of steps to follow. Try to complete the steps mostly as written to get the best results. However, you can make some changes to the steps to match new designs you create.

Do a little math and measurement. Engineers must measure things such as length and mass. In this book, I use the metric system for measurements. Engineers also do computations such as dividing to find a ratio. If you want, you can use a calculator to help you compute. I don’t use any formulas, but as you gain new skills you should be ready to use these, too!

Follow safety rules and ask an adult for help when you need it. Engineering is all about safety – putting on your safety gear, looking out for danger, asking for help, and using equipment responsibly. Your development as a junior engineer starts with safe behavior.

Courtesy of bilhagolan/Getty

Bounce back from failure. Failure is a word many grown-ups don’t like to say to kids, but it is an important part of engineering. When you design and test ideas, some will succeed and others will fail. Thomas Edison, inventor of the light bulb, said this about failure: “I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”

ABOUT THE ICONS

As you read through the projects in this book, you’ll see two icons. The icons point out different things:

This icon marks potential problems or dangers.

This icon marks helpful information or guidance.

THE FIRST STEP

Whether you view yourself as a future engineer or you just love to tinker and learn new things, your exploration of the projects in this book is a great first step towards fun and rewarding work. Good luck as you enter the world of engineering!