Ethics and Responsibilities of Engineers

"With great power comes great responsibility" - Uncle Ben

I'm no fan of the of the Spiderman movies and even less supportive of Tobey Maguire, but I feel that this quote has much to do with ethics. If we are to only take one missing basic from this course, it would be vital to not have a lack of "Parker 101". Peter Parker has lots of powers to do good, but the movies show his struggle to do right. As upcoming engineers, we will have the ability to fix and change the lives of others. We need ethics so that we affect the lives of others for better and not for base motives.

While we are in college, we have the responsibility to become the best engineers possible. This can only be reached if we follow some ethical guidelines. Schoolwork and exams can pile up, but they must be taken care of with our effort alone. We are being unfair to other students if we turn their work in as our own. And though it might be tempting to use another person's writing or use other sources to get an answer, it does not teach us anything. By cheating at schoolwork, we are cheating ourselves from becoming better engineers.

Ethics must also influence us as professional engineers as well. Our work must still be our own, but using other's work is now considered stealing and the consequences of it are much more significant. A less covered responsibility of an engineer is to make sure that their project does not negatively affect the lives of the people using it. The benefits of others are always more than our own. A different material or process may save us money and speed up production, but how does it affect the safety of others? This is something to be considered once we hold the lives of others in our hands.

Engineers are supposed to find solutions for the problems of others. We are not doing our job if we compromise this idea for our own benefit.

Some Creative Ideas

Full process cupcake maker (from mixing ingredients to decorating). By selecting some parameters, the machine makes custom cupcakes

Integrated kitchen inside car - items such as a fridge and a toaster that hard wired to the car's battery.

I love crayons

Shown here in high quality crayon drawing is my idea of iEFX as a system. Though the graph is friendly enough to understand, I'd like to explain my labels:

Inputs

Students - This is what iEFX is mostly about. All of the labs, blogs, and Goldberg videos would be pointless if there was no one to teach. The students are an interesting bunch - though we all have a few years of learning ahead of us, I feel that a lot of it comes from talking to other students. Unlike the rest of my engineering classes, there's no majority of one type of engineering. Everyone is very diverse and has a different thing to bring into the program.

Money - Self explanatory really. We'd have a really hard time having this program go if we didn't have any cash money to run it. It's what allows us to buy food, lab materials, and parts for projects.

iSAs/TAs - These guys are guidance. Though all the engineering students in the program are very smart, they still need to know what direction to take. iSAs and TAs are previous members of the iFoundry program who have first hand experience in projects. And besides being past members, they too are extremely smart, so listening to them is a good idea.

Passion - Knowing all the stuff in the world isn't going to do one any good unless they have a goal to accomplish. Passion is what excites us. We're all going through this extremely tough engineering program so we can do the things that we want to do. Be it death robots or cleaner water supplies for all, our passions not only create an end goal but find ways to drive us to get there. It's kinda like money without being dirty.

IEFX

iTeams - People can get a lot of tasks done on their own. They can do even more when they're in groups. As we have all learned, a good number of engineers aren't just walking calculators. Many of us have great ideas and forming a group is the best way to make them happen.

Meetings - This is time for the iTeams to meet up and get their projects done.

Projects - iTeams usually come up with one or more project. These are ideas that we think are cool and want to try out. Projects allow us to put our knowledge and passion to good work.

classes/ENG 198 - it would be foolish to just go into a project without knowing the missing basics. Our discussions educate us on conventions such as labeling, models, communication, and such. Without this knowledge, starting and sharing a project with others would be much more difficult. Your tortilla business would be screwed.

Lab - This portion of IEFX is learning by doing. A group has two projects to complete. However, there is little instruction. The groups are free to go about as they wish. As practice, they are also required to write lab reports and make presentations.

Outputs

Smarter students - The students were already intelligent from the beginning. After going through the program, we will hopefully be wiser and have a better idea about engineering and how to work towards completing projects

Ideas - Perhaps new ideas will spawn from the projects in iEFX. Maybe some students will want to improve current projects. There is a good chance that every student will leave with a plan to accomplish something else.

Connections - A ton of people are involved with this: past students, current students, professors, and business people. From the classes and labs to things like EotF, there's a ton of people to talk to. The system leaves us with people who we all may work with in the future.

Feedback

Experience - In class, we were given a survey about the material. This is one way to improve the system. However, experience is another way that we can better the program. For example, a group may have a problem meeting up to work on a project. The feedback is not enough people showing up and the result is a different meeting time or place. By finding out what works, we are already helping the program.

Future iSAs - Just as we got guidance from our iSAs, the next group of students will need help too. Some people from this year will use their experiences to guide future freshmen.