Exploding Glock

[Devils Paintbrush]

Reminds me a little of this German classic. Klaus has a bad day at work with his fork truck (tongue in cheek safety video).

Extra irony since I drive a fork truck from time to time and am going to Germany at the end of the week.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oB6DN5dYWo

Ever hear of a guy named Rube Goldberg ???

http://www.rubegoldberg.com/



That guy can brag to all his friends that he got lathe last night.

They showed us this industrial safety movie in tech school, it was made in 1970, I watched it again recently just for kicks.

Shake Hands With Danger

 

[dcmdon]

I'm an engineer, actually. I specialize in coming up with over-complicated solutions to non-problems.

This kind of stuff is typical of engineers who have never actually BUILT something themselves. Engineers who actually like to weld and machine stuff are usually better at designing things because their real world experience colors what they design.

With that said. The definition of German engineering is complex solutions to simple problems.

Why on earth did the headlights on my Audi need to turn with the steering wheel. They only turned 10 deg in each direction. How about just increasing the beam spread by 20 deg and bumping output by 20 deg? But no. Instead, I get a headlight assembly that costs $2000 each.

 

[NHAtHeart]

Time working in a machine shop should be mandatory for an engineering degree...it might help cut down on the amount dumb stuff we see on prints.

It is at RPI but it's fairly minimal, once per week for 2 hours for 1 semester.

 

[ToddDubya]

This kind of stuff is typical of engineers who have never actually BUILT something themselves. Engineers who actually like to weld and machine stuff are usually better at designing things because their real world experience colors what they design.

With that said. The definition of German engineering is complex solutions to simple problems.

Why on earth did the headlights on my Audi need to turn with the steering wheel. They only turned 10 deg in each direction. How about just increasing the beam spread by 20 deg and bumping output by 20 deg? But no. Instead, I get a headlight assembly that costs $2000 each.

1) Marketing.
2) Because they could.

Believe me, engineers said the same thing you did but headlights that turn with the car make for cool commercials and pretty brochures. Once someone made the decision to overcomplicate them, the engineers were probably more than happy to solve such a cool problem.

Edit:

How many collisions don't result in replacing headlights? At $2k a rip there's some serious money to be made in parts.

 

[atilla]

frames? ain't nobody got time 'fo dat.

[video=youtube_share;KrNGoFLghKc]http://youtu.be/KrNGoFLghKc?list=UUlnBjz8MdVNE3DxdmsCAzFw[/video]

special request from mr. morse:

 

[OCB]

Time working in a machine shop should be mandatory for an engineering degree...it might help cut down on the amount dumb stuff we see on prints.

Completely agree. My first job out of school was doing early stage research for the DoD (mostly). Most of what I did was build prototypes of stuff that I designed, so I learned early on to be very mindful of manufacturability - because I was going to have to machine any part that wasn't COTS myself. I definitely could have benefited from some formal instruction on fabrication, though.

 

[dcmdon]

When I started engineering school, a family friend gave me this book:

http://smile.amazon.com/To-Engineer...go_smi?_encoding=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0

Its something every engineer should read.

Of particular interest to me was the L'ambiance plaza collapse in Bridgeport, CT.

The engineers designed something that could not be built. So the construction workers improvised a change that nobody noticed. It resulted in the failure of the building and a lot of people dying.

I'm trying to find the drawing of the change. Its obvious once you see it.

Don