Tiger Woods Foundation

Job Description

If you like to invent new things, make things work better, and test how things perform under varying circumstances, this may be the job for you. Engineers use science and math to make useful things or to make things more useful. They identify the needs of people and industries and develop affordable solutions. Engineers design products that we use daily - from computers to planes to contact lenses. They plan the machines that make products and the factories that house the machines. They devise the systems that make industries run smoothly and that maintain the health of workers.

Since there's no limit to the types of products and systems designed and redesigned every day, there are many different types of engineers. All engineers must be innovators and problem-solvers.

Top 10

WHAT'S THE BIG IDEA?: Engineers are idea people. They solve problems with ingenuity and creativity in every area of human activity. Here are ten areas in which engineers, using science and math, work to make life more convenient, adventurous and healthy.

AEROSPACE: Aerospace engineers design, analyze, model, simulate, and test aircraft, spacecraft, satellites, missiles, and rockets.

AGRICULTURAL: Agricultural engineers fashion systems, machines and technology for farming, irrigation, food processing, testing, and coding. For instance, they help to homogenize milk, inspect the harvesting of eggs, and design better tractors. They are involved with every step that food undergoes on the way to the supermarket.

CHEMICAL Chemical engineers study how chemicals react to one another. They study how chemicals combine and repel each other, and they try to replicate and predict chemical reactions to make new products and systems. Since everything on earth is made up of chemicals - from the human body to plants, water, soil and air - this covers a lot of ground!

CIVIL: Civil engineers design, construct and operate spaces and systems used by the public, such as buildings, roads, railroads, pipelines, and bridges.

ELECTRICAL: Electrical engineers design and develop products and systems that deal with electricity, magnetism and light. Their designs and innovations make electricity and bring it into your home, school and workplace; electrical engineers also design and help produce appliances that use electricity.

ENVIRONMENTAL: Environmental engineers study and design ways to protect the environment and public health. They develop defenses against land, water and air pollution; they plan systems for the proper disposal of hazardous and solid waste; and, they help execute controls for toxic materials and wastewater.

FINANCIAL: Financial engineers study how money works in the big picture. They formulate systems for predicting, tracking, protecting, increasing, and maintaining the value of individual businesses and entire industries.

GENETIC: Genetic engineers are scientists who study and perform experiments to create new methods for altering the development of life forms. For example, genetic engineers have invented ways to grow everything from seedless grapes and watermelons to human organs for transplant.

INDUSTRIAL: Industrial engineers work with businesses to help them run cost-efficient, safe and productive organizations. They work with mechanical engineers to choose the best machines, oversee the systems that keep factory workers protected from dangerous materials, and design the processes by which products are tested for quality and safety.

MECHANICAL: Mechanical engineers design, manufacture and operate parts, machines and systems. This is a very wide field of engineering that covers everything from creating tiny bolts and screws to developing gigantic gears, including heating, ventilation and refrigeration systems and laser, medical, automotive, and computer technologies.

How to Get There

Engineer Your Future:

• Try your hand at inventing. Look around and take note of the tasks you perform regularly. Can you design a system or gadget that will make your routine easier, faster or cheaper? Make a detailed sketch of your gadget or a diagram of your new system, and then see if it works!
• When you don't understand how something works, ask someone who might. Take simple objects apart and put them back together to understand their inner workings. (Make sure you can do this without breaking them, and never take something apart that's plugged into an electrical outlet!)
• Find a mentor. If there's something you're particularly interested in, ask an adult to help you find specialists whom you can observe while they work. Like clocks? Find a watchmaker. Like cars? Find a mechanic.
• Math and science are very important for an engineer. Take special care in these subjects in school and ask your teacher about experiments and extra credit.
• Play with building sets and experiment with model kits. These are fun ways to practice working with your hands and to hone your designing mind.
• Read and research the aspects of engineering that interest you. Go to your school or local public library for books and magazines, and use these keywords with your favorite Internet search engine: "ENGINEERS," "ENGINEERING FOR KIDS," "EXPERIMENTS FOR KIDS," "PHYSICS FOR KIDS," "MATH FOR KIDS," "SCIENCE FOR KIDS," "CONTESTS FOR KIDS."

Activity

Time Is On My Side: Human beings are engineers by nature. We have been using the resources around us to build problem-solving tools for thousands of years. The first timepiece was engineered by the keen observation of sunlight and shadow. By taking advantage of a natural resource like sunlight, the first engineers developed a system through which time became a universal language.

With a friend, take a box of multi-colored chalk to a wide area that gets direct sunlight all day. Begin at 8:00 a.m.

First, choose a spot and mark it with an "X." Stand on the "X" while your friend draws an outline of the shadow that your body casts. Inside the shadow, mark the time you drew as "8:00 a.m." For the rest of the day, on the hour for every hour until 8 p.m., repeat your shadow-drawing process, using a different color of chalk and marking the time. You've made yourself a clock ... literally!

The chalk outlines that you've marked with the time will act like the hands of a clock. When you return the next day and stand on the "X," the shadow that you cast should line up with one that you outlined and marked the day before, telling you the correct time.

Q & A

Q. What was the most rewarding project you ever designed?

Richard T. has been a mechanical engineer for the last 36 years. He says:

A very rewarding project that I was asked to design was one that would remove ash from smoke coming from the chimney of a power plant. To give you a little background, electricity that we use in our everyday lives - like when we watch TV or turn on a computer - is made in factories usually called "power plants."

To make electricity, power plants burn fossil fuels such as coal, oil, natural gas, or nuclear fuel. Since this country is very rich in coal mines, most of the electricity that we use is produced by burning coal. However, like burning wood in a fireplace, burning coal makes ash and smoke. The ash in smoke is what makes it black - the more ash, the darker the smoke. This makes burning coal unpleasant to look at and unhealthy to breathe.

A power plant asked me to design and install equipment that would remove the ash from their smoke. This process changed the color of the smoke from dark to very light. In fact, when all the ash was removed, the smoke became almost invisible and therefore no longer objectionable to look at or unhealthy to breathe.

It was very rewarding to successfully design the equipment and the process needed to render the smoke invisible, making it safer for the environment and all kinds of living things.