Scratching The Engineering Itch
I knew very early on in my engineering journey that I would go down the leadership path. First off, I talk way too much for an engineer. More importantly though, I quickly discovered how much I loved the team aspect of building products. The process, the team dynamics, the complexity of building in the real world captivated me from the start and I realized that helping to grow and lead that team was where my passion was.
But as my career progressed, what I was NOT prepared for was the impact that not doing engineering work every day would have on me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m 100% doing what I love everyday as a leader. Although, if you’re like me you can’t fight that base urge to want to roll your sleeves up and start building!
Keeping The Pencil Sharp
What I found in my career is that it is vital to find creative outlet for that builder's mindset. It is way too easy to become frustrated and jaded with the day to day as you get further from the work that brought you into the field.
Creating also helps you stay better connected to the discipline and abreast of techniques and trends in the space. I’ve also found that it helps to keep me grounded with the effort of the team. It is all too easy to forget what it is like in the trenches every day as a leader. Especially as your team grows. Getting your hands dirty, even if just for hobby, can go a long way in maintaining understanding and empathy for the work itself.
Some Ideas For Creative Outlet
Contributing to Open Source
Find an open source project in an area you’re interested in and contribute. Not only will your code see production but it will also give you great perspective of being a pure team member vs. leader. Great for keeping yourself grounded and learning tricks from other leaders.
Impact Coding
A great alternative to open source is to join a social impact coding group. A great example would be local chapters of Code for America
Hobby Projects
My current favorite engineering escape is personal projects where I can scratch the engineering itch with a little bit of hobby electronics and some code. Once my kids started school I’ve found there is an endless list of projects to tackle to get the kids excited about STEM and making in general. Below is an example of a recent project I tackled for my daughter’s class.
About The Project
What I love most about my daughter’s third grade teacher is that she has no reservations about what is or is not possible to make. Once she heard I like to tinker she started asking for whatever she thinks would be cool, and it makes for some awesome challenges!
For this one, the class was having a Spy Day in the classroom. Sort of a Carmen Sandiego vibe. The assignment was to produce a Hand Scanning device that would grant/deny access to the classroom for each little Agent. Just the kind of project I like. A healthy mix of hardware/software and some visual crafting to create the illusion. Here are some of the fun details.
Concept
I wanted to create something that would look just like those classic hand print scanners with the grids and scanning lights. When it comes to kids, LEDs are gold FYI. With a project like this my first stop is always the local surplus shop, SkyCraft.
SkyCraft is great because they sell the most random surplus and odd lot electronics and hardware. You just never know what you’ll find when you walk in there. Every project I start like this begins with just walking the isles and seeing what jumps out at me, then I build around that. This time it was an old AT&T power supply enclosure that had the perfect size and look.
Hardware Design
With the concept and enclosure picked out the next step is always to figure out the brains of the device. Most recently I’ve been using ESP32s and ESP8266 boards. These are great little micros that have a lot of GPIO for driving LEDs and other components. They are also small and run off USB micro cables which is my preference.
With the brains in place, the next step is normally to shop my components. For this one I wanted a ton of multi-colored lights and a keypad so I knew I would need a lot of inputs/outputs, more than the micros had on board. I used a couple of GPIO expanders, a keypad and lots of RGB LEDs. I even went for a light sensor that would detect if your hand was present or not. A bit of a stretch goal as I hadn’t tried one in a project yet.
A tip for buying hardware
If you are not already aware of these sites, these are my favorite places to source components. Both are huge proponents of the maker space and the prices are great for projects like this. I sourced materials from both for this particular project.
Software
This is the part I like the most in these projects as it was my primary field professionally. For these projects I have mostly used the Arduino platform as it’s easy to get running, has lots of support and you can program in C++. I have been meaning to get back into some RTOS development with one of these projects but I never leave myself enough time to set up the board. Maybe next time. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
When I first started hacking on projects it was a painful process to get things setup. Compilers, toolchains and programmers were a challenge to get configured and just made things less fun. These days there are a lot of choices and tools that make it quick and easy. My favorite one is a tool called Platformio that integrates into VS Code and acts like a kind of package manager for the project. It’s wild. Check it out here.
If you’re curious about the code for the project, you can find it here on GitHub: Hand Scanner 500.
Scanner In Action!
I even built in some fun surprises for the kids and some ‘secret’ codes.
I think one thing that connects all engineers is, at our core, we are builders. We simply love to make things and put them out in the world in some form or another. As you grow in your career, it’s so easy to drift out of touch with that passion and become jaded with a field that you once loved. This can be especially true for those of us that go into leadership roles where our day to day becomes increasingly less involved in the building of the products we’re responsible for.
What I have found in my own experience is that finding different ways to reconnect with that passion is not only good for the soul, but also vital in staying sharp and connected to your craft. And perhaps most importantly, it’s just fun!
