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Look around. An electric light is probably on in the room. Perhaps the space contains a chair or a desk. Maybe there’s a laptop or tablet in view.
If you’re at home in the kitchen, you may see a box of juice on the counter. If the TV is on, you might see images and hear voices or music. Most of us take these things for granted. But all these things — each of them — is the solution to a problem and the end product of the engineering process.
Want an example of how the design process works? Look at how light bulbs have changed. First came the incandescent bulb, an electrical engineering answer to candles and kerosene lamps. Incandescent bulbs gave off lots of light, but they used lots of energy, too. So, engineers came up with fluorescent bulbs. They lasted a long time and used less energy. But people didn’t like their bluish light. The engineers’ response? A whole new technology — light-emitting diodes. LED bulbs give off a warm light. They also use less energy and last a long time. Problem solved. ▼
Incandescent Bulb Fluorescent Bulb LED Bulb
◀ Milk that lasts 10 or more days. Frozen vegetables that keep their look, taste, and nutrients after cooking. An unopened box of juice that stays fresh outside the refrigerator. Foods with added vitamins and minerals. These products all solved problems in the food industry. They were created by chemical engineers.
Meet ENIAC. That stands for Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer. It was the first large-scale computer in the United States. It really was large. It was the size of a huge room! ENIAC was built between 1943 and 1945. Today, all of its software would fit on a little chip. The chip would be smaller than the palm of your hand. Six women were the engineers who wrote the software. ▶
Think Piece!
What do you think will be the next development in computers?
◀ This is a motherboard. It’s like the brain of a computer or cell phone. Hardware engineers design and build motherboards. They also work on keyboards, routers, and printers. They ask a lot of questions in their jobs: How can we make the hardware lighter, smaller, faster, smarter? These are some of the thoughts that keep developers busy.
Software engineers create computer programs. They test and revise their work many times. Often, they get help from computer users. For example, operating systems may change a lot. Some have numbers after their name, such as 10.14. In this example, 10 is how many versions of the operating system have been made. And 14 refers to the number of changes in that version of the system. ▶
Kids Discover talked with Elvis Herbert, an audio engineer in love with sound.
KD: How would you describe your work?
Herbert: I like to think of it as creating a world of color with sound.
KD: How do you, as an audio engineer, make that happen?
Herbert: I work with all technical aspects of sound during the process of recording, mixing, and reproducing. For example, I adjust the intensity and volume of the different sounds, like the sound of the room, the sound of each singer and each instrument. That’s what mixing is. I also work with record and TV producers, and writers and musicians. There, my role is to help give their work or their project the sound they want.
KD: What kind of projects have you done?
Herbert: I’ve worked on projects with well-known musicians. I’ve also worked on jingles and on dubbing advertisements from Japanese to English and Spanish to English.
KD: What is something most people probably don’t know about your work?
Herbert: That you don’t have to love the music you’re working on to do a great job. You do need to be open to the music and not judge it.
