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How Everyday Things Are Made

Posted by michael on from the no-slide-rules dept.

OckNock writes "The Alliance for Innovative Manufacturing at Stanford University in conjunction with Design4x has released online courses on design and manufacturing that include over 4 hours of streaming video (Flashplayer required). Some of the topics include airplanes, crayons, and waterjet cutting. If only they had this when I had studied mechanical engineering - maybe I would have stayed awake in class more."

13 of 101 comments (clear)

  1. Ah, the memories by Megane · · Score: 4, Funny

    When I was a kid, all you had to do was tune in Mr. Rogers to see crayons being made.

    --
    #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
  2. great stuff! by seanadams.com · · Score: 3, Interesting

    During this internet craze, I think a lot of techies have lost touch with the amazing techniques that we develop for designing and manufacturing all the physical things around us.

    If you're an out of work geek, consider looking into the "old smoke-stack" industries for places where you could apply your software skills in helping companies improve margins through better automation and more efficient processes.

    1. Re:great stuff! by PurpleFloyd · · Score: 4, Informative
      Sorry, but process engineering is a dead field right now. Many companies are cutting "improvement" departments like process engineering and IT to the bone because they don't directly produce end products; middle and upper management often look down on divisions that don't do "real work." While companies doing this are essentially shooting themselves in the foot, most of manufacturing is cutting back or eliminating entirely divisions that serve to improve productivity. Since they're not directly related to product output, they get cut first and the company doesn't suffer immediately.

      Also, what makes you think that an out-of-work sysadmin or programmer would be qualified? All the process engineers I know have spent many years working on the shop floor in their industries, and know the processes involved like the back of their hand. If they can't find work, what hope is there for someone who walks in from what is essentially a completely different industry?

      --

      That's it. I'm no longer part of Team Sanity.
    2. Re:great stuff! by Jardine · · Score: 4, Funny

      middle and upper management often look down on divisions that don't do "real work."

      I wonder if that might be considered irony.

  3. Just on time! by sinserve · · Score: 4, Funny

    Some of the topics include airplanes, crayons, and waterjet cutting.

    I was depressed after reading the story about tech jobs being
    outsourced. But this new story suggests me a new career and I can already
    see the light at the end of the tunnel. I am gonna become a World-Class
    Crayon maker.

    /me "borrows" candles blackout and emergency box ...

  4. Mr. Wizard by Jason1729 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I learned about this sort of thing watching Mr. Wizard's World when I was a kid. I gained my interest in science watching this show.

    Jason
    ProfQuotes

    1. Re:Mr. Wizard by josh+crawley · · Score: 4, Funny

      Hmmm.

      Mr. Wizard: So this old man invites little boys and girls over to his house to do "experiments". We never meet Mrs. Wizard.

      No, there's nothing suspicious here.

  5. Really usefull if you learn by example by strider3700 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I love it when places do this. I've always found it easiest to learn by watching someone else doing it, then copying, and then experimenting. I've learned basic cooking and baking, simple home repair and basic automotive repair this way all from tv. From there I usually realize I enjoy it, pick up a book or find a web site and get better at it. I'm currently in the middle of rebuilding a car using a manual a web forum and what I learned watching those hotrodding shows on TV saturday mornings. Now if only someone would release free videos of how to play with fiberglass and carbon fiber.

  6. Take a look at by AchmedHabib · · Score: 5, Informative

    Take a look at http://www.howstuffworks.com/. There's a lot of explanations for just about anything.

  7. Hmmm by Timesprout · · Score: 3, Funny

    I dont see anything there about how babies are made

    --
    Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
    What truth?
    There is no dupe
  8. No way! by jeffkjo1 · · Score: 3, Funny

    You mean I've been lied to all these years.... stuff isn't made by tiny gnomes who live inside of everything?

  9. I hope the poster didn't pass by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    "I only they had this when I had studied mechanical engineering - maybe I would have stayed awake in class more."

    Stick to the crayons, dude. I wouldn't want to cross any bridges you "engineered."

  10. Hate to say it, but it's a good thing by weave · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Anything that increases productivity is a good thing. You want people to increase their standard of living. There is only so much wealth in the world to go around. You can either muck with the system to redistribute that wealth, or you can work to create more wealth so there is more to go around.

    Increasing productivity increases wealth. Unfortunately, some people don't get it. For example, if you force redistribution of wealth to balance things out and screw it up by removing incentives to increase productivity, you often descrease productivity and hence destroy wealth.

    Imagine back about 150 years ago when most of our society was agrarian. More than half of all labor went into producing food. Not a lot of luxuries back then. When automated farm equipment came out, a lot of farm hands lost their jobs. Was this a bad thing? Of course not. Because food became cheaper, jobs shifted to manufacturing where goods were produced to make people's lives easier, etc, etc...

    When jobs shift to other countries, some wealth shifts there too. But usually the productivity gains are more than enough to offset the loss in wealth because there's more of it to go around. It also helps the lives of other people in other countries to improve. Is that such a bad thing? Having a billion people in this world just sitting around and not being productive is a horrible waste of the world's potential. They should be out there making cheap toys for Happy Meals damn it!

    Beyond the economic benefits there are also other benefits. As each country's economy becomes dependent on others, they are less likely to take hostile action against each other (although introduce religion into the mix and all logic and sense goes out the window).

    As was posted by someone else above, there are still opportunities in IT to increase productivity in workers in your native country. As I look around my job site now, I see a tremendous amount of time spent in desktop support issues. I think the current design of software and OSes really suck. Lack of security, viruses, software that, when installed, can negatively affect other software on a PC, user's mucking with and destroying settings on PCs, etc, etc. Too much time in IT is spent with desktop support issues, fixing software issues, supporting users and not finding ways to improve the business process and hence increase productivity all around. There's also a horrible lack in adequate training. There are software tools out there to help, but employees don't know how to use it. How many in management know how to use software to plan things using a project-planning program for example?