Career By Design

While growing up, my parents' house had a pool. I didn't realize it as a teenager, but it was an interesting introduction to the world of fluid mechanics:

When it was raining outside, and the pool was about to overflow, my dad and I would go out to drain it. We did this by filling a hose with water, placing one end in the pool, and then placing the other end at a lower elevation, down a small hill in the backyard. In this way, I learned that water can travel uphill without a pump, via a siphon. 

Dye testing was also introduced to me to help us try to find a leak in said pool. When I began working as a water resources engineer, I learned that dye testing is also used in wastewater pipes to determine if a given pipe is connected to another pipe downstream, or to time the movement of flow from one point to another. (We also never managed to find the leak in the pool).

I learned a little bit about coagulation and chlorine contact when we would take apart the filter.

I learned that "bumping the DE filter" reduces pressure in the system, and that occasional backwashing was important too. I also learned that the system needs to "stay closed" and that I shouldn't let air get into the pipes if I was plugging in the pool vacuum.

Finally, I learned a little bit about how pumps work and the differences between pump sizes, electrical demands, and pressure head. For example, all pool and spa pumps are of the centrifugal type.

Did you learn anything while growing up that later turned out to be "engineering?"

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Christopher Seigel P.E., M.ASCE
Civil Engineer
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I learned a lot about aerodynamics with playing outside with my sister and the neighbor in elementary school. There was a slight hill from our friend's house to ours, and we lived on the corner. We would pedal as hard as we could from her house to our driveway, and then we would see who could coast the farthest around the corner after that. We'd mark where your bike stopped with chalk and write your name by it. After many attempts, we got better and better at positioning our bodies to reduce drag.

My sister and I also had a game where we would take turns riding in tight circles on our driveway. Whoever wasn't riding would use a ruler to match the angle of your tires to the ground. Whoever could get the smallest angle to the ground before crashing won. We learned a lot about the forces acting in circular motion by realizing the faster you rode, the lower you could get before losing control.

I also loved building with blocks as a child. I learned a lot about counterbalancing when I would add cantilevered pieces to my structures.

Last example for now: I learned about how opening area impacts fluid behavior by putting my thumb partially over the hose opening to make the water spray out faster/farther.

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Heidi Wallace EI, P.E., M.ASCE
P.E.
Tulsa OK
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Thanks Heidi! I love all of these examples and memories. It looks like you picked up on the fundamentals a little bit earlier than I did!

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Christopher Seigel P.E., M.ASCE
Civil Engineer
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Original Message:
Sent: 02-15-2021 12:56 PM
From: Heidi Wallace
Subject: "Accidently Engineering" - Things you learned while growing up

I learned a lot about aerodynamics with playing outside with my sister and the neighbor in elementary school. There was a slight hill from our friend's house to ours, and we lived on the corner. We would pedal as hard as we could from her house to our driveway, and then we would see who could coast the farthest around the corner after that. We'd mark where your bike stopped with chalk and write your name by it. After many attempts, we got better and better at positioning our bodies to reduce drag.

My sister and I also had a game where we would take turns riding in tight circles on our driveway. Whoever wasn't riding would use a ruler to match the angle of your tires to the ground. Whoever could get the smallest angle to the ground before crashing won. We learned a lot about the forces acting in circular motion by realizing the faster you rode, the lower you could get before losing control.

I also loved building with blocks as a child. I learned a lot about counterbalancing when I would add cantilevered pieces to my structures.

Last example for now: I learned about how opening area impacts fluid behavior by putting my thumb partially over the hose opening to make the water spray out faster/farther.

------------------------------
Heidi Wallace EI, P.E., M.ASCE
P.E.
Tulsa OK
------------------------------

In elementary school, I would receive all kinds of K-nex sets and instructions regarding what to build with them. At first, I was making simple 3D designs, like a car or a bug to play with. As time passed, I worked my way to entire construction sets, like a Ferris wheel and roller coaster ride. This work of understanding how to build designs and keep them stable helped me figure out how to construct original sets, and got me interested in mechanical engineering.

During this time, I also came up with my own 3D designs using magnetic balls and bars. Since there were no instructions, I used mental computational tools to keep each building up and running, with enough pieces for stability and static determinacy. Some rooms in the house were the 'surveyed land' for the precursors to a civil engineering degree to stay put for years.

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Alexander Granato A.M.ASCE
Student
Bexley OH
granato.3@...
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Cool Alex! I also grew up on legos and K-nex and am sometimes surprised that they do not cross my mind even more, given how much time I spent with them as a kid. I could spend hours alone in my bedroom putting them together. I even tried to organize some of them into a "special lego box" that consisted of all the cool parts that I did not have very many of - things like wheels, doors, windshields, wings. I guess I enjoyed building vehicles more than anything else.

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Christopher Seigel P.E., M.ASCE
Civil Engineer
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 07-27-2021 12:03 PM
From: Alexander Granato
Subject: "Accidently Engineering" - Things you learned while growing up

In elementary school, I would receive all kinds of K-nex sets and instructions regarding what to build with them. At first, I was making simple 3D designs, like a car or a bug to play with. As time passed, I worked my way to entire construction sets, like a Ferris wheel and roller coaster ride. This work of understanding how to build designs and keep them stable helped me figure out how to construct original sets, and got me interested in mechanical engineering.

During this time, I also came up with my own 3D designs using magnetic balls and bars. Since there were no instructions, I used mental computational tools to keep each building up and running, with enough pieces for stability and static determinacy. Some rooms in the house were the 'surveyed land' for the precursors to a civil engineering degree to stay put for years.

------------------------------
Alexander Granato A.M.ASCE
Student
Bexley OH
<maskemail>granato.3@...</maskemail>
------------------------------

When I was a kid, I loved seeing floor plans, how the interior design in every 2D's of blueprints that my Dad used to send those load of papers from a structural projects in Saudi Arabia where he use to be a laborer. I get inspired how the experts design the space inside the building and I honestly learned to be observant in every detail of drawings. I love seeing interior designs of every furniture's in magazines, exterior designs from one-story building into big buildings, and that's made me more creative and curious about it until in highschool  when I encountered AutoCAD, I have fun doing and drawing with it as I understand the detail of a plan and its designs. Also when I was at the middle school I used to play a DIY Miniature 3D Puzzle of famous tall tower/buildings in the world by KFC and realized later on that they are real structure of the world like how they do that, how they make it possible to design such skyscraper buildings for the people. And never thought it was called structural engineering and collaboration of the architects. And when I was 8 or 9 years old I play lego a lot , and other assembling 3D Modelling toys then its get's frustrating when I can't make it more stronger because it happened to be easily fall into places and figuring what ways I can make it stand still, and create my own city out of it, determine where my water coming from, where the waste will be out, where the suburbs will be built, creating a small highway for my small cars and figuring the traffic. I never realized I was really engaged in Civil Engineering, that was really fascinating. You can see the picture below what I have mentioned.


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Llala Chrishaye Ocampo S.M.ASCE
Student
City of General Trias Cavite
------------------------------

Thats very exciting Llala! It sounds like you were very interested in civil engineering even before you realized what it was!

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Christopher Seigel P.E., M.ASCE
Civil Engineer
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 08-06-2021 03:20 AM
From: Llala Chrishaye Ocampo
Subject: "Accidently Engineering" - Things you learned while growing up

When I was a kid, I loved seeing floor plans, how the interior design in every 2D's of blueprints that my Dad used to send those load of papers from a structural projects in Saudi Arabia where he use to be a laborer. I get inspired how the experts design the space inside the building and I honestly learned to be observant in every detail of drawings. I love seeing interior designs of every furniture's in magazines, exterior designs from one-story building into big buildings, and that's made me more creative and curious about it until in highschool  when I encountered AutoCAD, I have fun doing and drawing with it as I understand the detail of a plan and its designs. Also when I was at the middle school I used to play a DIY Miniature 3D Puzzle of famous tall tower/buildings in the world by KFC and realized later on that they are real structure of the world like how they do that, how they make it possible to design such skyscraper buildings for the people. And never thought it was called structural engineering and collaboration of the architects. And when I was 8 or 9 years old I play lego a lot , and other assembling 3D Modelling toys then its get's frustrating when I can't make it more stronger because it happened to be easily fall into places and figuring what ways I can make it stand still, and create my own city out of it, determine where my water coming from, where the waste will be out, where the suburbs will be built, creating a small highway for my small cars and figuring the traffic. I never realized I was really engaged in Civil Engineering, that was really fascinating. You can see the picture below what I have mentioned.


------------------------------
Llala Chrishaye Ocampo S.M.ASCE
Student
City of General Trias Cavite
------------------------------