Unprofessional Engineering

One of the greatest inventors of all time, as well as being one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, Benjamin Franklin had a pretty good run at it. But come on, who goes by Benjamin and not Ben?? That's like going by James and not Jim... wait a minute... He helped to draft the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution, and even ended the Revolutionary War with the 1783 Treaty of...

We got the chance to sit down with Mr. Neil Cross of TFI CAD Tips, live at Autodesk University, to discuss everything CAD. Stretching back to the early versions of AutoCAD up through CAD in the cloud and future looking predictions, we have it all! No matter the CAD package you use, this will be for you.

Making the Mississippi what it is today. Overseeing the Panama Canal. Constructing the Pentagon. Creating the King Khalid Military city. These are just some of the major contributions from the Army Corps of Engineers over the years. In this episode, we walk through civilian and military personal included in the Corps, work they do around the world, as well as the various wars that they played a ke...

Next time you're filling your car up with gas, take a minute to think about all the work it took to get it to the pump for you. Better yet, why not take 30 minutes and listen to us explain the entire process?! From upstream exploration and production processes, to collection and transportation, all the way to downstream chemical processing, refining, and distribution, we cover it all!

Have you ever gotten a glass of water and taken the time to think about the love that goes into each drop? Probably not, and it might be best if you don't think about it too much. In this AMAZING episode, we take a look at how water goes from your toilet, through the purification process and back into your house. For you city planners out there, we also discuss pump houses, why we still have water...

Are you interested in taking a trip into space? Maybe spend a week or two floating around the moon in a 5 star space hotel? Or just a quick flight up to feel what life is like without gravity? We might not be too far away! Companies like Blue Origin, Virgin and SpaceX (as well as many others) are well on their way to making space tourism a reality, and some are already sending people up for a quic...

One of the most important inventions of all time, the printing press has changed the world forever. From its humble beginnings in China, to the design of Johannes Gutenberg that we've all heard about, we wouldn't have the civil rights and freedoms we now have without it, or the wealth of books. Moving a little further into the modern era, we now have presses that can run thousands of pages per hou...

Continuing with inventors we love, we've finally hit on a guy that was an amazing engineer and inventor but just terrible at marketing and entrepreneurship in general. Enter Nikola Tesla. Without him, we basically would still be living in the dark, or with a powerhouse ever mile to turn the lights on. Sure, he wasn't real good at the business side of things, and he did end up going crazy and talki...

In the third part of our civilization smack down, we head to ancient Egypt to see what type of engineering and technology that the Egyptians created for the world. Since we all know about how amazing the Sphinx is, and of course the Great Pyramid, we spend some extra time on their invention of paper, hieroglyphs, advanced mathematics, and some of their crazy complex tools for their time such as th...

In part 2 of our civilization smack down, we take a look at the engineering contributions of the Mayan civilization. Or is it Maya? Mayan? Hmm…well, whatever it is, they had some amazing engineering. One example would be the written language of the Mayans. Unlike English, it is created from 800 or so glyphs representing a syllable or word. Sure, this means most words could be spelled a few differe...

Welcome to the civilization smack down!! Over the next 3 episodes, we'll be looking into how 3 great civilizations (Aztec, Mayan and Egyptian) contributed to engineering, the impact of their discoveries, and how they have withstood the test of time. The first civilization that we will look into is the Aztecs. Some of their notable contributions include: required education for all, advanced astrono...

Are you thinking about getting into engineering but don't know what flavor is right for you? The answer is simple: Mechanical Engineering. Sure, just because we are a couple of ME's might make us biased, but it does make sense. Job opportunity is high, pay is good, work is interesting...or at least it potentially can be. NASA, Boeing, SpaceX. They all need Mechanical Engineers! In this episode we...

If you haven't been living in a cave for the past decade, you know who Neil deGrasse Tyson is. What you might not know is what that guy ever did to become such a well-known personality in the science community. Other than some obnoxious tweeting and always having something to say about how inaccurate your most beloved space movies are, he must have done something, right? Well, maybe not all that m...

A huge focus has been placed on making buildings more energy efficient and eco-friendly. From the materials used to construct skyscrapers down to the amount of natural light they receive, LEED and BREEAM certified buildings are changing the game, and not just in the US! Countries all around the world are working hard to create a green cradle to grave construction projects. Engineering green struct...

You might not think that there's a lot of engineering or technology that goes into a tennis shoe, but that is not the case. From rubber and canvas to PVE cushioned mid soles, much has changed over the years. And now, with the advancements in 3d printing, 3d scanning, virtual reality and more, shoes are going to take their next step into perfection. See what I did there? Shoes...taking their next s...

You might be surprised to find out that there is a lot of engineering that goes into the dairy farming process. Yeah, I didn't believe it either! But dairy farming has come a long way from milking cows in the barn by hand. Today's farmers use a lot of advanced technology to make sure that they are producing the most milk possible while ensuring the health of their herd. Automated milking systems,...

We've made it to our 100th episode!! I know, I can hardly believe anyone still listens to this podcast either, but we're still going strong! Today, we take a look back on the journey that got us to episode 100, discussing our favorite episodes, which ones we could have done without, and even correcting some of the mistakes that Luke...er...we made throughout the two years of Unprofessional Enginee...

People have been using 2D drawings for thousands and thousands of years to depict everything from creatures they have seen (on cave walls) to detailed design plans. In this episode, we bring in our friend and 2D drawing expert, Paul Munford, to help us unwrap the history of the 2D drawing and why it is still so critical in the design and manufacturing process today.

Have you ever thought about how much the invention of steel has changed the way the world works? From construction to every day appliances, steel is all around us. But how is it created? In this episode, we'll look into the engineering, or black magic, behind transforming iron into steel. We'll also take a look at some of the history of steel, including the Bessemer process, Andrew Carnegie's fort...

Perhaps the greatest inventor of all time, Leonardo da Vinci created a number of amazing works, and theorized even more that technology needed to catch up to. Oh, he was a pretty OK artist too... In addition to engineering and art, he also liked to diagram the human body to pass the time. Who doesn't dig up the dead and sketch what their bits look like? From defiling graves and painting the Mona L...

We all like to think that we know our way around the grill, but do you really know how to cook the perfect steak? Continuing our series on engineering the perfect food (did you already check out how to engineer the perfect turkey?), we will walk you through a number of methods to achieve perfection the next time you're making steak. Not only will you learn to be a better cook, we're going to teach...

Let's face it, folks. The end of the world is coming, and we're likely going to be the cause. Robots might destroy us, we may end up polluting the world out of existence, or perhaps a breed of super cyborg pigs that have been breed not to fart as much will take over. That is exactly what we're exploring today. OK, maybe not EXACTLY that, but humanity has made some creepily impressive ventures into...

Dams are a critical part of modern civilization, providing water to those in need, irrigating farms, preventing floods and generating 17% of the world's electricity. But there is another side of dams that we should consider. What are they doing to the environment, and what can engineers do to fix this problem? In order for us to keep benefiting from all of the great things dams bring to us, we'll...

We all know about 3D printing in the workplace by now, (at least you should since we've already talked about it) but did you know that there are companies out there ready to 3D print houses?! That's right! And it is fast, too! In just 24 hours you could have a 650 sq foot structure ready to finish up. Just add a roof, electric, plumbing, windows...OK, so there is still a lot of work to do, but thi...

The Eiffel Tower is more than an ugly metal tower in the heart of Paris. It has ugly elevators and viewing platforms as well! What is truly impressive about Gustave Eiffel's (stolen) dream is the timeline for constructing the tallest structure in the world, at that time. How does something like that stay on track?! Even more interesting is the hate that it received from civilians, and that enginee...