Job Shadowing an Engineering team making the next great Smart Phone

“Get A Grip” is a short story in the ‘Engineering Stories’ series about Melissa, a young engineer who hit the ground running at her first job. What a great experience. Read the story for free at the link below. Here is the Mentors Note that follows the story.

Mentors Note – Your experience as an engineer could be similar to Melissa’s. You could be teamed with senior engineers to learn from them as well as to contribute new ideas from your perspective. How did Aaron, Mike, and Melissa react, individually and as a whole, to surprises, setbacks and problems? Would you say that Aaron and Mike were good mentors? Was Brandon a good manager? How would you have led the team through each phase of this program? What role did Mike play? Should the most experience person make all the decisions?

Product Development is an exciting adventure creating new or improved technologies, combining creative and academic skills, managing and nurturing relationships to bring the best out in everyone involved. What engineering skills were necessary for this project? What communication and personal skills were important? Where did they go to get inspiration?

What did this team do well? What could this team have done differently to be more successful?

Some engineering problems can be solved immediately, by applying good sense and skills; other problems take time, deep thought, experimentation, study, and conversation. What happened when the team discovered that the vacuum cup suction was reaching through the slip-sheet and gripping the adjacent panel? What did the team do to solve the problem? They experimented, adjusted variables, then took time to think, removing themselves from the present environment to rest and get fresh ideas. Are all problems solved by one person, by the expert? What is the advantage of working as a team?

If you like solving these types of problems and working with teams, you should seriously consider the satisfying profession of engineering.

About Kenneth Richard Hardman


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