Bricoleur or Engineer or ...???

Alright, I will take the bait: I'm a bricolengineer!

One of the things that I appreciate about this forum, is that there doesn't seem to be the dichotomy of which you are writing. I have not found engineers "speaking down" to persons they felt were inferior. Nor have I found "bricoleurs" who sneered at the engineers out of an inferiority complex. At some point in education, experience, and using the logical/scientific mind, the two are indistinguishable.

Milo,

I think the difference is in the definition itself. I think (modestly) that most bricoleur' would be less interested in the minutae and more interested in the results. The true engineer might look more like a nerd while the bricoleur more like a farmer.

In fact the bricoleur, I think, finds his (or her, these days) epitome in the small rural farmer, while the term engineer implies a college education and some small amount of refinement.

Bricoleur" originated in the old French verb Bricoler which refers to extraneous or tricky movements in games and shooting. It has come to mean jack-of-all-trades, particularly one who works with his hands in 'tricky' or "crafty" ways.

By the definition you give above I have to consider myself a Bricoleur. I've pretty much always considered myself a Jack-of-all-trades.

Since I do NOT have an Engineering Degree. I've learned to old fashioned way by many years of hands on experience. I can't sign and seal anything but I can pretty much do the same things that most of our engineers do. And sometimes come up with ways of doing things that don't fit the mold but work all the same. I believe this might be because of the way I was taught. I wasn't taught "this is the way things are done" I was taught "get it to work".

Oh and thats another thing I love about this group. As some one previously said. You degreed engineers don't seem to look down on us non-degreed engineers.

Milo,

I think you need a mixture of the two approaches to succeed. If you go back to the Wag Dodge example (by the way, Weick screws up this story pretty good), firefighters knew about good black - they had just never made it on purpose. So, the bricoleur in Dodge saw a new method to achieving an old solution. That was a case of using materials on hand and improvising.

The Forest Service studied that fire in great detail and added escape fires to their training. But they looked further and saw that Dodge stood in low fescue when he built his escape fire. If he had been in tall timber, the escape fire wouldn't have worked fast enough (best estimate is that he had about a minute to get good black before the fire wall hit him) and the higher temperature of the timber fire would have roasted him anyway. So, they used good engineering skills and developed the individual fire shelters (shake and bake). Thanks to those, the crew on the Butte Fire lived.

But, everybody missed the other thing that would have probably saved most or all of the Mann Gulch team - dropping their gear in time to run to the canyon wall without all the extra weight. Two men escaped that way and two more almost made it, so an extra fifteen seconds might have made the difference. That failure to drop equipment was a contributing factor in the deaths on Storm King Mountain almost fifty years later. Now, dropping equipment (and tighter discipline) is a part of training.

So, staying with the firefighter analogy where you started, I'd add my comment that "boots on the ground" are always the best source of information and the solution to a problem has to include a good mix of that kind of first hand knowledge and good engineering practices. And, on top of that, after you have a good engineering solution, you have to get feedback from the "hands-on" guys. I vote for a mix of theory and practical problem-solving.

I have bought Golden opinions from all sorts of people. - Macbeth

Thanks for the agreement on Weick's workmanship. He ignored some important evidence to make his point.

Do register, your thoughtful responses will be welcome here.

milo

I was raised on a farm where I learned the art of "bricolage" from the lack of access to proper tools and techniques and an extreme savvy attitude. "Bricoleurs" tends to spend more time than money as time is considered "free".

Once I got my engineering education and worked in companies where time was "expensive", I got used to spending more money up front to save some time.

This is in my opinion where the major difference between the two types lies.

Bricoleur or engineer?

The bricoleur tends to be an engineer in the function of developing and applying a solution. With or without the education.

Not always is an engineer a Bricoleur. And in many cases this is an advantage to an engineer. But if you look around, the engineer that is a bricoleur is usually the "go to" for answers or inspiration.

I must admit I've followed the road closer to the bricoleur. In this I've lost many of the engineering "species" traits and I have to discipline myself more to complete strict engineering tasks. "The savage mind" of a bricoleur certainly has assisted me in many projects. But it has driven me away from some of the more in-depth technical aspects that I use to enjoy.

One thing I do know is that a good engineering design team values both of these "creatures".

Don't worry, I haven't bitten any of my colleagues.

It sounds like "Hillbilly Engineering" (?). I'd take it as a compliment. If a person can't improvise and adapt things, they may as well stay in a classroom.

thanks for this interesting discussion.

It crossed my mind today that maybe I shouldn't be part of this forum, because I am not an engineer. Then I stumbled on this blog.

My education is in philosophy and science, but not engineering. I have been jack of many if not all trades. I could almost be considered a pig for trades. And I like to design and make stuff. It's what I do.

I am really a pig for knowledge, and the internet is to blame for my interest in new technology and things engineering. Apart from being a tinker (and a thinker), having a library full of other-peoples-science at my elbow when the day's work is done is too good. This is where the metaphor breaks down, I think, in separating savage and scientific. Is the 'savage mind' by definition a self-educating mind, and if so, is it different in the information age? If "scientific mind" is the opposite, does this imply the savage mind is "unscientific" ? (a dirtier word than 'savage' by most accounts )

I've been a subscriber to Global Spec for a couple years now, but didn't look into the forum until recentlly. Seems like a bit of fun if it can be savage-scientific for the bricoleur/...???

Well, jack of many trades screams bricoleur.

But my point was that perhaps Levi-Strauss cut the basket too large- that perhaps that third "designer type" is part of the mix.

I know design engineers who are competent; some not so competent- They designed a floating stand off for ore boats at our dock. It sunk... they were promoted to asst. plant superintendent...

but the "take your breath away designers seem to be yet another country...

hoping to hear from more. and thanks for your response.

milo

I'm a physicist, not an engineer; I'm not allowed to design anything. Hence, I have become a "bricoleur" or, since my French is very bad, a junk-yard engineer. My brother, also a physicist, was much better at it than I, having once acieved the "impossible" by fixing an air compressor in the wilds of Africa. He could stick his hand in a bore and say," It's about 3 thou out," and I've seen him file a spiral bevel gear, by eye, out of a blob of weld material, thus saving months importing a part and also saving money. I admire those abilities.

I think that engineering comes in various styles. I knew a woman with a degree in psychology who was hired as an engineer (can you say affirmative action?) and performed better than most of her colleagues. I think the most successful engineers are, perhaps covertly, artists. For example, the Eiffel Tower, in Paris, is esthetically pleasing as well as functional. Or consider the Spitfire fighter. Some "highly qualified" engineers seem to be cognitively impaired. I am reminded of the structural engineer who signed off on the design of a long support rod (too long to transport) with a nut threaded on the middle (how do you thread only the middle of a rod and put a nut on it?). Reference the Hyatt skywalk collapse in Kansas City. Or the engineer on the F-15 fighter who, when the waveguide from a transmitter turned out to have about 15 dB loss, demanded a tansmitter with 15 dB greater power.

Well fill my frogs and call me 'mortarfied'......

Hi Miles

Please find what I have come up with here. Thanks again, Ky.

http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/65283/The-Greener-Grass-On-The-Other-Side-G-G-S