Hello, I Am A Budding Engineer And I Want Professional Feedback On My Work.

Maker, may I ask how old you are?

From what you show, it looks pretty cool. I would like to see more detail.

I have a 15 year old son, and we build stuff like this together, more lego, and stuff out of wood, but similar.

I am 16, and I will eventually make a more in depth video about how I made the K'NEX Ball Machine. What sort of details are you interested in? I can post some more detailed pictures if you like.

I think your popsicle stick model is pretty impressive. I would like to see more of that.

I say popsicle sticks because they are nothing to start, K-Nex are made to be built, the sticks are nothing more then a pile of wooden sticks. It takes great creativity to make something out of them, and that is what you did. The K-Nex model is awesome, but the popsicle stick model shows great creativity. Great Job!

Are you doing all of this by yourself, or do you have a mentor helping you?

I am doing this completely by myself. I see your point on the creativity.

rather Rube Goldberg

Very much so!

By the way, allow me to welcome you to CR4!

Thank You.

Thank you for taking the time to write that. You insights are much appreciated. I enjoy math, and science, and art. These three things really come together in my work.

Technically, N°5 is not mandatory.

G.A. from me.

None of these are really mandatory, but I've been an engineer for over 30 years. If you want to be a successful engineer in an organization, In my opinion, I would say it is mandatory. If you want to start your own company and be THE BOSS, then you can act like an @$$ and people can decide whether they want to work for you or not.

I get all the help I can use by asking for it, not demanding it.

Remember the old proverb, you catch a lot more flies with honey than vinegar.

P.S. Those people in the shop have saved my butt numerous times because they caught my mistakes before it went to production. If I treated them like I didn't care, they wouldn't either. I've seen them say, "OK, you're the engineer" and built it just like it was drawn.

That makes sense. It is not always better to by feared then loved.

That P.S. is on the money.

I had the good fortune (although I didn't think so at the time) to start my professional career in a company where the usual comment of the maintenance and operating personnel was usually "Who was the BLEEPING engineer that laid this out?"

Every one of my projects was run-by either a maintenance foremen or the operators for input on minor details that would affect their everyday jobs. Believe me, I learned how much sometimes something as simple as moving a line a few inches made their jobs easier, and made my projects successful.

Very well said! I will share this as-is with the young engineers that I coach from time to time.

Registering to CR4, giving a succint statement of intent, and posting some video say's plenty. Many new members do not manage that. Your background is lacking for anybody do advice , but as a first post that is most excellent. I hope you continue to partake here. The people more clever than I will help,

Thank you for your vote of confidence.

I subscribed to this thread because it is one the better newcomer threads I have seen, hopefully I will be able to help you out with something, if not there are plenty of highly qualified, intelligent engineers here that I am sure will.

Good luck young man.

Thank you for the optimism.

I am particularly impressed by your craftsmanship, as well.

There should be a high school bridge contest, sponsored by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) somewhere near your school. M.E.S.A. may also do so.

In any case, check out www.asce.org and seek out a local Chapter of ASCE.

Similarly, www.mesausa.org

At www.asce.org ,

it will help to (search on):

popsicle stick bridge

and on:

Engineers Week

In any case, good luck with what ever decisions you make.

Thank you for the information.

You are more than welcome...

Great craftsmanship on that model, it shows your patience, skill in measurement, and making accurate cuts. At least if you made any mistakes, I did not see. If you make one mistake with hand tool, you could make ten in the same time with power tool!

I predict some day you will be an engineer of great structures. Perhaps you could bridge great societies also?

Remember this: fail to plan, and you plan to fail. To fail is human, to fail the same way over and over is cheating yourself and your children out of your potential.

Thank you for you confidence.

Holy smokes! That thing walking across the beach is one of the coolest things I have ever seen. Great link, thanks for posting. G.A.

I just ordered a model strandbeest for my son to build.

Sorry I replied so late. That machine is insane! I have heard of those types of machines before, but have never actually saw videos of them.

That is part of the logic behind making these videos in the first place.

Welcome to cr4.

One of the good attributes of an engineer is the ability to construct a sentence using good grammar, spelling and punctuation.

Using these three items will help you to articulate your correspondence in a way that makes it easier for others to understand a question or concept your trying to convey.

Clearly, you have a strong command of the English language.

Thank You.

GA, especially the Dilbert part. And the last paragraph about the 'joking around' part. Well said.

Maker, out of curiosity, have you tried balsa wood as a medium? Instead of popsicle sticks?

It comes in many sizes, from small sticks, large sticks, sheets, pretty much any size you could want. It's cheap, easy to work with and cut (x-acto knives).

With your creativity, I think using balsa would open a whole new dimension to your building.

When I was in my mid-twenties, I had an N-scale layout, I built a lot of stuff out of balsa including a double cantilever bridge with a center suspended span. The detail was amazing, I even made the piers out of balsa. With a little Testers concrete grey and sanding, you couldn't tell they were wood. It was 40" long and stood 14" tall at the center.

I don't think there much of anything you can't create with balsa. This link shows pictures of stuff people build with balsa.

I have never built anything with balsa wood, but I am open to trying it!

Just as a matter of curiosity, what kinds of wood did you use to make your ''Taipei 101'' tower?...

He said it was popscicle sticks. Have you never seen a popscicle tree? Hint: they are not evergreen,

Go back and watch the entire (tower) video...

alright, alright, he used K'Nex too. I have never seen those hanging low from a tree either.

Please let me know if you do, so I can take my own photo of such a tree ...

(By the way, K'nex kits are now available in some Walmart(R) stores for direct purchase...)

Besides building, are you interested in how things work; some things fail; and what approach is best to remedy these failures?

These too are indications that you might be a good engineer, or more properly, engineering is a good field for you.

Yes, I am very interested in how things work. Building is just one physical expression of this attribute. I enjoy testing out theories with my creations.