Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with engineering

CompEngr EXP

Rubbstone — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 12:49:45 -0800

What was the best experience you've had as a Computer Engineer or Computer Scientist? Bonus: experiences owning you own shop and working as a consultant. I'm researching working as a computer engineer. Any other resources you have about the profession and what it entails would also be helpful.

If it does exist, I imagine the school crest is something like duct tape, a paper clip and a mullet

rileyray3000 — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 08:09:30 -0800

Is there a REAL MacGyver School in the world? Is there the equivalent of a MacGyver School anywhere in the world? Say tomorrow I wanted to learn, for lack of a better term, “Improvisational Engineering”…where would I go? Is there a real class anywhere out there or a major or even a specific school that teaches these things? Even if it’s an informal collective of engineers that occasionally takes apprentices, that’s fine.

Seeking clicking mechanism or design...

pallen123 — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 08:21:02 -0800

What kind of small toys or devices click when you rotate them forwards and backwards? Seeking mechanism or design... I’m trying to help a friend design a small toy and she needs a mechanism that will click in very small increments as she rotates a small (1 inch diameter) dial that turns 360 degrees on its axis. She needs the dial to click precisely as it turns clockwise and counterclockwise in smallish increments. I was thinking a fishing reel mechanism might work, but that just allows turning in one direction. Then I thought a ratchet wrench mechanism might work, but that also turns in just one direction (and I’m not sure how the inside of a ratchet wrench works either). Can anyone think of existing toys or devices that have a clicking mechanism that freely rotate? Novel solutions? Suggestions? Thank you!

Does line by line scientific calculations software exist?

stepheno — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 09:26:39 -0800

Is there any computer based replacement for doing numerical engineering problems by hand? As a Chemical Engineering undergraduate, I frequently have to hand up hard, long assignments.

A common problem for me is, having reached the end of calculations, realising a minor mistake at the start and having to write out everything again (since it's important to hand up a neat, clear report in general). It'd be nice to do the calculations on computer, before writing it out.

I've tried using Excel, but it's just not relationally smart enough. Here's what I'd like:

A linear workflow, just as you have on paper. Unknowns become knowns slowly and equations are repeated.

For everything to be related, i.e. should a constant change, all calculations follow suit.

Any recommendations on software that does this would be great, as would suggestions of applications that solve my problem in a different way that I'd expect.

The 40-Year-Old Electrical Engineer

lekvar — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:59:52 -0800

How are things looking for Electrical Engineers? I'm considering going back to school to get a degree in Electrical Engineering and I was hoping that The Hivemind could provide some perspective.

Firstly, what is the market like for someone with a BS in Electrical Engineering? What jobs are commonly available in the US? I've done some looking around and the school's website is a little vague about the particulars.

Secondly, and probably more importantly, what kinds of hurdles will I be facing as a 40 year old with a freshly-minted degree?

Structural Engineering Industrial Placements for U.S. Students

pianohands — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:05:38 -0800

What are my chances of getting an industrial placement internship in the UK? I'm a US citizen attending a US university majoring in structural engineering. Unfortunately, my program does not offer a lot of practical experience (no co-ops) or any guidance in securing internships (our career fair was a total bust this year with only two construction companies attending). While I've been scouring the internet in search of internships for the coming summer, I've seen several UK based firms that do industrial placements for a year. The descriptions are exactly what I'm looking for: basically taking a gap year to gain practical experience in structural design. However, most have connections to UK universities; I was already turned down by one company within a week of applying, for what I'm pretty sure was the fact that my home address is not in the UK. Do these companies (like ARUP and Laing O'Rourke) ever hire students from the US? Should I bother spending time on applying?

Other background information:

I'm currently a junior, so I would want to start either summer 2010 or earlier.

I have a fairly solid resume and GPA; I spent the last two summers doing research in civil engineering, as I was not experienced enough to have a design internship.

I've basically completed the design courses at my school. The CEE program is very small, about 20 people per year, so juniors and sophomores take the same classes alternating every year. I've done concrete and steel design, steel building design, and structural health monitoring.

Any personal experience, anecdotes, or advice would be much appreciated!

How to encapsulate tiny objects, with the option of removing the capsule later?

zennie — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:13:13 -0800

Mad-scientist-filter: I need to encapsulate 1.5mm pellets in a thin, non-toxic, preferably natural material that could later be mechanically removed (example). I would prefer that the capsule could come off cleanly. A difference from the example above is that the capsules would be removed from each pellet individually, one-at-a-time. (Why? Because I'm a mad scientist is why. Mwuhahahahaha.)

For the sake of visualization, let's say that I...
- am going to encapsulate nonpareils,
- have basic laboratory supplies,
- have any necessary safety equipment, and
- have $500 for other expenses.

What I'd actually like to encapsulate is similar enough to nonpareils that this would be an acceptable working model.

Have any thoughts on how I might do this? Wild speculation (that attempts to answer the question!) is entirely welcome. I'm brainstorming here-- or rather, storming your brains.

How to find a small company, in another country, for a 1-year work term?

james.nvc — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:42:05 -0800

I'm currently a third-year Engineering Science student at the University of Toronto, majoring in computer engineering. As part of my program, I'm supposed to do a 12-16 month work term. While there are a variety of large tech companies that recruit directly from this program, I'm interested in working at a smaller, preferably U.S.-based technology firm. How should I go about finding a suitable place? For more background, I'm interested in a wide variety of programming languages, such as Lisp, Scheme, Haskell, OCaml, Python, Ruby, etc. I'm proficient in C and C++, but I prefer to avoid them when I can. I'm hoping to find some sort of web- or software-development firm, still in at a more startup-y phase, that would be interested in hiring a student for a year. Do I have any hope in this endeavor?

Greengineering

thekiltedwonder — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 18:45:14 -0800

Save Our Planet Filter: My girlfriend is doing a "green energy" engineering project and needs inspiration. This is a project for an electrical engineering class in college so give us your coolest ideas for green energy projects. The project is supposed to interact with the public - something that could be put on display in an exhibition, a museum, college campus, or anywhere public. Additionally, it must educate the public to "think green" and raise people's awareness of green energy sources.

The description is pretty vague and can be pretty much interpreted in any way she wants, except it MUST provide some sort of user input and some sort of feedback to help the user understand something about green energy sources (solar, hydroelectric generators, wind turbines, or any other means of electrical generation or efficiency.

An example that was given was to have a solar panel on display, and have people put their hands over the solar panel to see how the energy generation of the panel changes with shadow in the way, using a little display. The professor likes this idea because it is educational and it gives back feedback.

Another example that was given to her to inspire her was a public trash compactor that uses a solar panel as its energy supply. Obviously this is a much bigger project and needs some sort of twist to be "educational", but it's another way the assignment can be interpreted.

She's got about a 50 dollar budget for electronic parts and about 7 weeks to complete this, so it's not a huge project, but still worthy of an electrical engineering major. She feels most comfortable working with (small!) solar panels, but is interested in all areas of "green electricity".

So, if you could ask someone to design an interactive electronics project that is green and educational, what would you ask them to create?

Engineering Question

nickhb — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 22:03:33 -0800

Any engineers or physicists who can help with a vector mechanics problem? http://i36.tinypic.com/35a2fc8.jpg That is the diagram. The problem is as follows: A 0.5 X .8 m gate AB is located at the bottom of a tank filled with water. The gate is hinged along its top edge A and rests on a frictionless stop at B. Determine the reactions at A and B when cable BCD is slack.

I've been trying all weekend and I really have no idea how to do this problem. Any help would be nice

How do Studio Stands Work?

kepano — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 15:48:50 -0800

How do FOBA studio stands lift up? I'm curious about how the wheels on studio stands lift up. Look at this this FOBA stand for example.

Under the cast iron base are caster wheels which can be raised or lowered to secure the unit or move it around. A simple press on the foot pedal allows this action to happen.

How does this work?

Better pictures in this PDF.

Pros & Cons of bringing web development in-house?

MeatLightning — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 11:33:22 -0800

Pros & Cons of bringing web development in-house? Hi all -
I manage a mid-size e-commerce website. We currently work with an agency to build and maintain our site. We are considering hiring a dev (C# / .NET, SQL) and taking over development... or at least much of it (still may go out of house for UX, front-end dev).

Anyone have any advice, experiences, warnings, etc they can share?

Have you gone down this road? How did it go? What should we watch out for?

thanks in advance!

Sound advice

Zenabi — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 15:55:12 -0800

I am looking for recommendations for a recording interface and self-powered monitors. The Firebox gets rave reviews but I recall reading somewhere that there are now newer/better alternatives. Is this the case?

Living in South Africa doesn't help as the price for the Presonus Firebox is truly insane ($250-00 in the US - $759-00 here!)

Equipment:

- Quad core Q9550 with 4 Gig DDR 3 RAM - Audigy 4 sound card (could this be used for anything later?) - SONAR 7 - Behringer Eurorack MX1604A - Rode NT1-A

Due to the pricing here, it looks as if purchasing in the US via credit card and having the items shipped over here seems to be the way to go - any dealer recommendations or advice? Also, any other advice regarding the equipment/assembly of a home studio would be most welcome.

At this stage, I am uncertain whether I should use the Behringer mixer or how best to wire it in to break the pure digital setup (more advice required!) TIA

Adjusting my Sails

Rubbstone — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 21:32:47 -0800

Do I give in to wanderlust? Or go back to school for a grad degree in Comp. Engr with an eye to robotics? I'm a graduate of Morehouse College with A Physics Degree. I'm kind of pigeonholed in the current economy and unsure of what the next step would be. I had a full scholarship when I went to school but since then I've under achieved to a 2.99 which would be a 3.25+ minus leadership and art classes. I like my job in customer service most of the time but its draining for the introvert. I don't want to be around people that bore me right now. My family is recomending me for grad school at this point and their right, if I'm going now is the time. But,should I. I'm not even sure what I would want to be a good outcome. I'm smart a problem solver and a fast worker who knows how to work with difficult situations. I want to be my own boss and I like designing things, thinking aobut what people need and occassionally being with people. Do you have any ideas for me? Any places I should look or go. I've been thinking military but I'm already chaffing at my jo,bs rules I think that would be worse. Half the time I feel like I should blow all my money and skip town

Great idea for a course--horribly misdirected.

k. — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 22:16:41 -0800

I'm taking an innovative course on using technology for humanitarian causes, taught by a professor I really like. But it's awful! How can I tell him what I think, and/or turn this disaster of a course into something worthwhile? My hopes were high at first, because I was really excited about the topic: I wanted to learn how to use my technical skills to do something good for people, instead of just to make money. I'm hoping to find a job in my field that does some kind of good, since I'm not sure I could stand it otherwise.

But the course turned out to be very different: it seems to be entirely about giving people computers. Dumping gadgets on people is of questionable long-term value, and, most importantly, it doesn't teach us students anything about how to use our skills--which are not about donating technology but about making it--to make the world better place. We read case studies of projects that gave people technology, and we're installing a computer lab made from donated computers in a local public housing project. While this kind of community-service might help some people in the short term, it sure isn't teaching us any new technical skills or any ways to use our existing skills to help people in the future.

I don't think using technical knowledge for the common good is an unreasonable idea. Engineers Without Borders does it all the time; so does the Humanitarian FOSS (Free and Open-Source Software) Project. And, given that we're adept at crunching numbers and have a GIS expert on hand, I'm sure there's a lot of climate- and environment-related stuff we could work on as well. All great things, but not what we're doing in this class.

The course is small and somewhat student-directed, so I may be able to push the class (or my own work in it) more toward something I could actually learn from. But I have to do this very carefully, for two reasons. First, our class is effectively committed to the housing project's computer lab, so any additional projects or "field work" we take on has to be in addition to our work on that (in other words, at least some of us have to continue the work on that and probably most will). Second, I don't want to seem oppositional or offensive, because I really like the professor--he's a fascinating person and one of the best teachers I've had--and I want him to like me too.

How should I express my doubts about the course, and how might I try to shift the focus more toward material from which I might actually learn something?

Dear Alderwoman, I did not enjoy my drive through a construction site in your ward. Plz advise.

limeonaire — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 13:38:37 -0800

Engineers, construction workers, and lawyers: How can I find out what the specific site safety requirements and statutes are for an under-construction commercial urban development site? Specifically, I'm looking to find out more about site-safety requirements in the city of St. Louis, Mo. I'm especially seeking information that might shed some light on what might be required in the way of erecting barriers, fences, and signs to keep the general public safely off roads and paths leading into construction sites.

Here's the specific circumstance that prompted this question:

Headed north on a local highway in the dark, amid a light drizzle, I took a city exit I'd never taken before. I soon I figured I'd best find a way to get back on the highway. I made a quick right at the first light I reached, then turned right again at the next light after that, hoping it might take me right back around to the highway on-ramp. (A look at Google Maps when I got home suggested that that's exactly what this road originally did.)

Unfortunately, the road quickly turned into an unlit, half-paved drive, surrounded by overgrown brush. The drive narrowed as I crested a small rise—only to find myself at the edge of a vast expanse of muddy gravel. The street, it seems, currently dead-ends in a vacant lot behind an under-construction Walgreens. The only way out, since this was a one-way street, appeared to be driving toward the already-constructed parking lot. So I drove slowly across the gravel, headed for the parking lot—only to find myself stuck in the mud right next to what turned out to be a new curb. After a series of fits and starts, I finally got my car unstuck—and came down with a big crunch on the other side of the curb.

Hyperventilating, I parked next to the building, where the light was better, and got out to check the car. Nothing creaked or popped or looked obviously broken, so after moving a traffic barrel blocking the new parking lot's only entrance/exit, I made my way back to the highway and drove home.

This morning, I moved my car and checked the pavement where I'd been parked, and saw several fresh oil spots. This car is only a couple years old and has never leaked anything in the time I've had it. So I took a flashlight and peered under the car, and it looked like the plastic cowling protecting the oil-filter area had come partially dislodged. I couldn't see anything else that looked obviously damaged, but clearly I'm going to need to take this in to the shop tomorrow so they can put it on the lift and repair the cowling and/or the oil-filter cap/gasket and/or anything else that might've been damaged.

Hence my initial query. I'm trying to figure out what recourse, if any, I have in terms of recovering damages in this situation (perhaps via small-claims court?)—and making sure it never happens to anyone else. I can't believe they don't have that street blocked off.

I plan to contact that ward's alderwoman first thing Monday. But I'd like to have something concrete to cite in my conversations with her and/or anyone else I have to deal with about this explaining what's wrong with the site, especially since the builder of this development is a very large company.

I found a few sections of the Missouri Revised Statutes that look as though they may apply: 319-035, 319-040, 319-041, 537.346, 537.348.

I also uncovered slides from a PowerPoint presentation on ANSI's A10.34 standard (Google's cached html version here), which, although only a voluntary-adoption measure, still provides some sense of what the baseline standards for construction-site public safety should be. The very first requirement listed? "Restricting public access to the jobsite – a site security plan." Along those lines, best practices listed include "100 percent fencing of the project site," "Use of easy to read signs," "Daily inspection of fences, locks and gates," "Daily inspection of traffic control devices," and "Night lighting or security service." The area of the site I ended up driving into had none of those things: no fences, no gates, no roadblocks, no signage, no lighting, no security.

So...are the statutes I uncovered relevant? Is this ANSI standard relevant? Does anyone know of anything more specific I should be reading about or anyone else I should be contacting at this point? Thanks for any help anyone can give me with this!

Offsetting sea level rise: An engineering idea of Biblical proportions

0bvious — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 04:52:25 -0800

The seas are rising. Climate change has made it inevitable. I have a strange question... Assuming that world sea-level rises by 1 metre over the next hundred years - Would it be possible to cordon off a section of land, somewhere in the centre of a continent, and flood it to create an artificial ocean, thus reducing the consequences of the sea rise? This Biblical scale engineering feat must take these issues into account:

1. The section of land would have to be a very large 'bowl', in the centre of a continent, that is already below sea level. Another section of land, leading from the ocean to this central 'bowl' section, would have to be carved out to create the biggest dam system mankind has ever witnessed. Does somewhere like this exist?

2. The number of humans currently living in this 'bowl' would have to be less than the number of humans who would be displaced by the 1 metre sea level rise. Otherwise this huge engineering feat would not be worth undertaking.

3. Other environmental issues should be taken into account, such as the ecosystems that would be displaced or the new weather patterns and ocean currents that would be created.

Do you have the calculations of water/land displaced? Or ideas about where this kind of thing could be built? I'd love any input on this monstrous thought experiment.

Thanks!

What would you do if you had an engineering degree?

MechEng — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 08:55:15 -0800

What would you do if you were a recent engineering graduate? (What companies would you be looking into across Canada?) Suggestions for all branches of engineering are welcome.

A bit of background about myself:
Recent Mechanical Engineering graduate. ( with ~ 2 years of co-op experience). I am interested in almost anything Mechanical Engineering related, from vehicle engineering (aircraft, trains, automotive, etc) , HVAC, to power generation. What would you suggest as companies to apply for within Canada?

Willing to move anywhere for the right Job / experience. (Although Major cities of interest are Ottawa, Vancouver, Victoria, Toronto)

It has also been suggested to go back to school for something business related (seen a bunch of links about mba on ask metafilter)

I understand that mechanical engineering is a wide branch of engineering on it's own, and would like some suggestions as to which direction I should take.

What are the chances of becoming a Quantitative Analyst in the UK with a PhD in Electronic Engineering?

noztran — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 04:49:42 -0800

What are my chances in becoming a Quantitative Analyst in UK, and if they are not too bleak, how to improve them? I realise this is a rather significant career path change, however, as I have been given to understand, many banks and financial institutions in UK do employ PhDs from a wide variety of backgrounds. I am about to finish my PhD in Electronic Engineering (specifically, Optoelectronics - lasers, fibre optics, etc.) I have been doing in a British university. As much as I enjoy my subject, I do not plan to continue my career in academia.

To conclude, my question is not totally hypothetical. After googling a bit, I have compiled a brief list of what I have been exposed to, and what I believe banks/financial institutions might find of interest:
- chaos theory
- ordinary differential equations
- wrote a simulation of semiconductor laser dynamics in FORTRAN
- analysed gigabytes of data (not kidding!), both in time-domain and frequency-domain
- visualised the aforementioned data in numerous ways
- stared at the graphs and figures until the point when I wanted to rip my eyes out :)

Thanks in advance

good research materials on the subject of electric cars, 3d modeling and/or entrepreneurship?

groovinkim — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 14:40:29 -0800

good research materials on the subject of electric cars, 3d modeling and/or entrepreneurship? my boyfriend is the son of a mechanic and dreams of starting his own electric car company (not for the everyday consumer, more like higher end sports cars). he does a lot of online research. he's very intelligent and relatively knowledgeable about cars, engineering, etc. when he gets that dreamy look in his eye and starts rambling about the technical specifics i usually don't understand a word he says. his feelings were hurt initially because i was skeptical about the project. he has viable ideas, but he's more of an archetype of a creative genius/professor than a pragmatic businessman. but i do think that his business has potential.

his birthday's coming up relatively soon, and i'd like to help him by getting him some books and magazines on related subjects.

some things i can think of that i could possibly get him reading materials about:

- electric cars in general. manufacturing processes, the market overall, engineering of them, etc.

- 3d modeling. he's mentioned that he plans on acquiring dual lcd monitors, a 3d scanner and whatever else he needs to make clay models. i don't want to buy him any of that stuff (not that i could afford it anyway) because i'm sure he's very specific in what he wants/doesn't want and probably already has his software of choice picked out. but if there are good books or magazines for a beginner, that could be useful.

i'd much rather have him rent or share a workstation somewhere here in seattle than invest a bunch of money in equipment, but he's weirdly paranoid about using public workstations and the slight possibility of his designs getting disseminated without his knowledge. i really doubt that would happen but haven't been able to successfully talk him out of his paranoia. i'd really like to find local people doing it that would be willing to talk to him about it so he doesn't accidentally buy something crappy, but if there's a consumer reports type magazine that covers related products that could potentially help.

- starting a business, specifically the economic aspects (licensing, getting funding, attracting investors, patent laws and copyright laws, etc.) i do sales/marketing for a voip company currently. although it's not my passion in life and i plan on switching careers, i think i can help advise him on marketing, networking and related topics. but i know nothing about starting a business... i've always worked for other people's small/midsize companies.

also, if anyone happens to know about related college or non-credit programs in seattle, that'd be of interest too. he's currently a programmer making a good living but he never finished his bachelor's. he preferred teaching himself. although he's generally good at self-education, i really feel like it'd be helpful for him to get hands-on experience with 3d modelling, advice from someone knowledgeable on the subject etc. while i don't think you need a degree in business to start one, i've also seen several friends start small businesses that were great ideas that failed miserably. my outside opinion is that they failed in part due to lack of sufficent research/knowledge.

i also feel the need to include a rambling offtopic paragraph about how i <3 metafilter. i work full time and go to school full time so i don't have much time to spend here, but it inspires me that there are still little pockets online where intelligent people communicate in a usually-respectful way. i'm sad that there was no seattle meetup and i didn't have time to organize one myself.

6 or 1/2 dozen the other?

hwyengr — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 14:37:35 -0800

Consulting engineering is driving me up the wall. Would being a patent agent be any better? I have a BS in Civil Engineering, my PE, and I've been a consulting engineer for 7 years. Technically, I love the work when we have it. But, the office I'm in doesn't seem to do the kind of work I like (see prev AskMe). I'm a nuts-and-bolts plans production engineer for highway and railroad design, and this office does a lot of non-technical pre-design work. I'd try to get another job, but even in this "recession-proof" industry, nobody's hiring and there aren't that many firms in Los Angeles proper that do what I want to do.

It seems like every engineer's dream to break free of the mid-level salaries of consulting and become a high falutin' patent lawyer. In my case, the lawyer part would be far off since I'm sans JD, but I think I could handle being a patent agent for a while. What scares me off, though, is that I might be giving up one form of stressful mind-numbing work for another. The ol' greener-grass thing.

Does anyone have experience with a career jump like this? Can I even do this with a degree in Civil, when most patent jobs seem to want EEs or MEs? Should I stand pat and just be happy I have a decent job (for now, bankrupt state and all...)?

Stress Strain Diagram

gzimmer — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 19:25:13 -0800

Looking for a quality Stress-Strain Diagram of Structural (Mild) Steel to use to study from. Googling around has only given me pretty low res and crummy pictures.

Bonus points if you can find one that has any of the more important aspects denoted.

Can Nylon/Plastic gears be recut in steel?

Tchad — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 10:46:03 -0800

Sewing Gear Filter: I have a number of sewing machines that have nylon or plastic composite gears that have broken. Some of them I can have replaced, some of them are no longer made. I am wondering about DIY bionic sewing machine parts. My machines have gears similar to these. Some of them are beveled drive gears as well.

I have some access to machine shop equipment and think I could probably make the gears myself with a little patience and a couple of books, but was wondering:

If the gears were originally nylon or plastic are there reasons that go beyond cost, noise, maintenance, and weight? As far as I know it is just a function of them being cheaper to manufacture, quieter in general, and requiring less lubrication.

If I grind or cast the same shape gear out of steel am I going to ruin the other components? It doesn't seem like I would, but I thought maybe they made the gears more flexible/fragile so that they break before bending other parts.

Are there any book or tips you know of for this kind of thing? They need not be specifically sewing related, but not having a degree or experience in engineering they need to be approachable.

I have tried to get answers from antique car repair shops, but none of them want to take on small work like this. I have tried google and dealerships, but most of the information seems to be proprietary - which is fine but a few of the pieces are so old that they are no longer manufactured.

Thoughts or ideas? These machines are so good I am willing to put work or money into them.

Any Solid Edge v20 experts out there?

gonzo_ID — Mon, 18 May 2009 13:44:35 -0800

How do I create my own draft templates in Solid Edge v20? I want to create my own title box on the draft section of solid edge v20. With my own data, logo, title, details, etc.

how on earth do i do that? uncle google is giving me trouble.

What can be done with 6,000+ hard-copy books and a forensic engineer's lifetime paper collection in the "Age of Information"?

patience_limited — Sat, 02 May 2009 19:58:13 -0800

Is there a person or organization which will pick up and make productive use of a (non-famous) engineer/scientist's lifelong collection of books and papers? The local university libraries and relevant engineering organizations no longer accept hard-copy materials. I'm living across the country, and the family can't keep paying storage cube rental after my father's death. It's going to have to be an all-or-nothing donation in the next two or three months, or everything gets sent to a landfill. The storage facility is in the Ann Arbor, MI (USA) area - please see the extended explanation for details. My father, a consulting forensic engineer, amassed a large collection of engineering and science books. There's also a 40-plus year compilation of case files, photographs, blueprints, etc. concerning hundreds of studies of industrial accidents, automobile collisions, environmental issues, patent applications and the like - he never threw anything away. Any litigation involved has been concluded at least seven years ago, well past state or federal obligations to preserve or destroy notes and evidence.

Following his death last year, my family would like to empty the storage cubes these materials occupy to save the cost of rental. We're talking about 600+ standard-sized banker's document boxes. Unfortunately, the local university libraries, engineering organizations, and legal groups have all refused to accept any part of the collection, claiming that "we don't deal with paper anymore".

I'm trying to deal with this from 1,200 miles away, and the most practical and economical solution involves sending it all straight to a landfill.

I admit to a sentimental attachment to the value of my father's work during his lifetime. He's one of engineering's unsung heroes - kept the steel industry in America alive for 20 extra years; patented a process to make nitrogen fertilizer as a byproduct of steel-making, which in turn made the Green Revolution economically feasible; made industrial machinery, transportation, electrical power distribution and nuclear power safer, etc..

It would be irresponsible to discard the hard-earned historical wisdom gained from studying how things fail. The recent banking crisis is the perfect example of wise restraint undermined as successive generations lost their recollection of the consequences of error. Dad worked on the Holland Tunnel disaster, Three Mile Island, alternative energy development during the 1970's... the list goes on.

There's also the study of the evolution of scientific knowledge - the book library under consideration covers every aspect of engineering and most branches of science, mathematics and medicine in editions dating back to the 1920's. If you visit a modern engineering library, "obsolete" volumes are mostly gone from the shelves. The older books in Dad's library had what are now considered errors and oversimplifications. Nonetheless, it's worth having them, if for no reason other than to see how far we've come in what period of time and how we got to the current state of awareness.

In short, I'm asking if anyone knows who would be interested in picking all of this up and making good use of it. Geography, limited funds and time make it impossible for me to itemize and arrange partial pickups of books or other materials - it's really going to have to be all or nothing.

I'd rather that the recipient wasn't a used book dealer looking for free inventory and willing to discard papers to get it, but that's still better than sending it all to a landfill.

Thank you, MeFites, for applying your wisdom to solving this problem. Interested parties should respond to MeFi Mail.