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Keeping in mind that every company will evaluate your interests, experience and qualifications differently, heres some generic advice Id share.

While some companies still require a specific degree to fill a role, robotics seems to be stacked with people who break this mold. I work in a world of PhDs, college dropouts, mechanical engineers who write software, and software engineers who design mechanical parts. Some roboticists make it all the way through college without any direct robotics exposure, while others may be employable with skills compiled in a high school robotics program.

Be brave and willing to experiment in college and with internships, as these are great opportunities to learn what you like and what you dont like. Try to find what youre passionate about early; it is a lot harder to change your path late in your career!

The internet has democratized education, and most employers are aware that someone with a high school diploma and a zealous interest in software can easily develop into a stellar software engineer. As a result, youll see more and more job postings that list requirements similar to MS in software engineering, or equivalent experience.

Still, a conventional college education is by far the most common path to a job in robotics, and the most popular degrees are in mechanical, electrical, software, computing, systems, and if your school offers it, robotic engineering.

It can be hard to find an interesting job without relevant experience on your resume. Keep in mind that part-time jobs during high school demonstrate reliability and soft skills that are often implicitly required in job applications.

Lucky for you, most engineering companies have embraced the idea of hiring college students for summer internships. Again, when youre just trying to get your foot in the door, make salary a second priority. Focus on finding yourself a job that will give you the necessary experience. I met an American high school student who found an interesting drone design firm in Japan, and through a carefully crafted email that pointed out all the improvements he could make to their website, managed to get hired for a summer. He even contributed to their drone software before the summer was over.

Another student who offered to work for free if he could report directly to a company CFO wound up getting a paid internship despite the fact that no job was posted, and he had no relevant prior experience. A cover letter stating that you want to work for XYZ company so badly that youll sacrifice your salary is a powerful tool that will generally get your application some attention.

If you have some great idea you want to pursue, consider a self-led project; these look great on a resume and can teach you some invaluable skills.

Once youre looking for a longer-term job, make sure youre honest about what you do and dont enjoy. Even in an interview, I appreciate having candidates who are genuinely interested in figuring out if the job is a good fit for them. If you openly talk to determine fit, there is a better chance youll find a role you love. Conversely, if you land a job by exaggerating your experience/skill/interest, it is unlikely to work out in the long run. While you are on a quest to search for a job or college, remember that recruiters and employers are doing the same, looking for potential employees who would be a good asset to their company.

Once youre in a job, make sure it is leading you in the right direction. A lot of small companies may not have a structured career planning program, or your manager might just be oblivious to the concept. Dont be afraid to drive this conversation yourself; talk to your manager about where you want to take your career, and together find opportunities to build relevant skills. If you find yourself in a position where you cant seem to get the experience youre looking for, cast a net and see what other opportunities you can find.

Lastly, know and believe you deserve a great job. A little self-respect can go a long way in building a good mutual relationship between you and an employer. Ultimately it is up to you to forge your unique experience, and I wish you the best luck on your journey!

Matt Coady has spent more than 25 years in the robotics industry, working in a broad range of robotic industries. As Realtime Robotics VP of Engineering, he is responsible for ensuring that engineering fully realizes the companys vision, delivering the strongest possible product to customers on time and with the expected quality.

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What the Class of 2022 Should Know About Getting Started in Engineering - Manufacturing.net

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Sales decline 1.33% to Rs 1596.15 crore

For the full year,net profit declined 56.09% to Rs 108.82 crore in the year ended March 2022 as against Rs 247.85 crore during the previous year ended March 2021. Sales rose 1.36% to Rs 5499.34 crore in the year ended March 2022 as against Rs 5425.57 crore during the previous year ended March 2021.

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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First Published: Sat, May 28 2022. 16:16 IST

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You dont need to be a huge architectural fan to have heard the name Frank Lloyd Wright at least once in your lifetime. Wright was an American architect, designer, and educator who designed more than 1,000 structures over 70 years of work. With notable accomplishments like Fallingwater and the Guggenheim Museum, its hard not to be impressed by his innovation. However, there is only one private home in Florida that was designed by Wright throughout his career! The good news is you can still tour it! Come see why Spring House in Tallahassee is still a true feat of engineering.

Have you ever visited Spring House in Tallahassee before? What do you think about this historic feat of engineering in Florida? Share with us your thoughts in the comments section!

Or if youre looking for more architectural gems in the Sunshine State, check out this abandoned dome house near Marco Island.

Address: Spring House - Frank Lloyd Wright, 3117 Okeeheepkee Rd, Tallahassee, FL 32303, USA

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Spring House, Floridas Only Frank Lloyd Wright-Designed Private Home Is A True Feat Of Engineering - Only In Your State

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On Call Sure, you might use words like "boom" and "explode" when it comes to errors with your system. But could a whoopsie have the potential to render a chunk of a country uninhabitable? Welcome to On Call.

Our story comes from a reader Regomized as "Ellen" who spent the early part of the 1980s toiling away in the IT department of a company producing software responsible (in part) for running nuclear power stations.

A brand new system was in the process of being rolled out, which would keep track of which stations were online, how much power they could provide, and so on.

Commissioning was underway using a test rig connected to a new reactor under construction. "A team of Americans were in the building teaching the company's managers how to use their system," explained Ellen, "which was to sit on top of ours."

"They were providing the reactor control equipment that our system talked to."

It wasn't going well. Despite some lovely gear for the time (think a curved wooden desk with inset DEC Rainbow PCs in the control room and a bunch of VAX/VMS systems in a fail-safe cluster), there were problems getting the VAX to talk to the power station. The line was up, but there was no communication.

"Hair was being pulled out, time scales were collapsing, and I was getting white hair with stress," said Ellen, "not least because I was on a successful completion bonus."

As is so often the case, a seemingly inconsequential setting was changed and everything sprang to life. The equivalent of a ping was sent and the reactor responded: "Yes, I'm here."

"Strictly speaking, this was a reactor simulator," Ellen added, "a fact that will become important later."

However, for now, things were online, the software was working, and while there were only three days to plow through 10 days' worth of tests, the team at least had a fighting chance. Tests were set to execute sequentially overnight.

The Rainbow PC in the comms room would run them and dump the results to the printer. Ellen and co explained the approach to the site manager at the end of day meeting, which the Americans also attended. Another important point.

Yet despite the money-no-object approach, bizarrely there was no lock fitted to the computer room door. While nobody was supposed to touch the equipment, Ellen's team took no chances and stuck a cardboard box over the PC with the words "System Under Test DO NOT TOUCH" scrawled over it.

"It was now well around 10:30pm," she recalled, "so the team and I set off for our hotel, aiming to reconvene at the 8:30am Morning Meeting."

Sadly, The Call would come in a good few hours before that morning meeting. This being before the days of the ubiquitous mobile phone, Ellen had a pager which chirped urgently at 6am. She had to attend the site NOW!

When she arrived, the tension in the atmosphere was palpable. Something had gone terribly, terribly wrong. The manager of site was also in attendance, as was the biggest of all cheeses the Director of Power Generation.

"A sort of deathly silence fell over the room," she recalled, "the sort just before a public hanging takes place."

"Yes, I was nervous."

"It seemed that our software had experienced some sort of problem and as a result the reactor had gone offline, the control rods had slammed in, and it was now no more than an oversized kettle."

At this point we must remind readers that this was a simulator, not the real thing.

Had this been a real reactor, it would have taken months to recover, at a cost of millions of pounds.

And Ellen and her software were clearly to blame.

"No one could tell me what exactly what had happened. Just that it was my fault," she said.

Seeking to delay her execution, Ellen asked if she could review the output of the line printer to get an idea of what might have happened. The bosses agreed and gave her an hour's reprieve as she scuttled off to the comms room.

Upon entering the room (the one without a lock), she and the team were greeted by a scene of utter devastation. The box with the "Do Not Touch" lettering had been discarded. The test PC was in bits and the disk was missing entirely. The line printer had stopped mid-line when the PC had been attacked.

Alarming, but not something that would cause a reactor scram, just a delay in testing.

"I asked one of my team to connect the printer back to the VAX and dump the application logs for me," recalled Ellen. "He was told to bring them to me even if I was in a meeting especially if I was in what was going to be a stressful meeting, to say the least."

The investigation continued and got stranger still. The other Rainbow PCs were all up and running. They shouldn't have been Ellen's team had yet to commission them, merely setting them up for cable routing purposes. And yet there they were, humming away.

Ellen returned to the meeting with her findings. One of the US team was in attendance, and confessed to switching on the PCs.

"When asked why," said Ellen, "he responded that because us amateur-hour Brits were so far behind schedule he wanted to get started training the control room staff, so he wanted all the PCs booted and ready."

So how was this achieved? The media to boot up the PCs was locked up in Ellen's safe store ("the back of my car," she confessed).

No problem. The US tech had simply grabbed the disk from the PC running the testing and copied it to the other computers. "Obviously it worked because they are all up and running," he said.

Suddenly, everything became clear. Had Ellen a Poirot-style mustache, some serious twirling would have been called for.

The logs arrived and were handed over. Ellen pretended to study them, but already knew what the evidence was going to show.

Ellen: "So, you cloned the disk on to all the PCs..."

US Engineer (proudly): "Yes, and saved several days".

Ellen (looking at the log): "And you went to one PC and asked for a reactor status from the power station."

US Engineer: "Yes, but it didn't work your software is so full of bugs, it's total crap."

Ellen: "And when you cloned the disks, you changed the DECNet address on each PC?"

She, of course, knew that he hadn't. The log said as much.

US Engineer: "Err, no, what's that? Is it important?"

It was indeed.

The protocol used for communication was designed to avoid hacking. "There were multiple control commands," explained Ellen, "to eliminate any false commands that could, quite literally, cause a bomb to go off."

In this instance, all the PCs now had the same address, meaning that when communication was attempted (for example, a simple status request from the reactor), all manner of nonsense would bounce around the network. The reactor (or, to be clear, the simulation) software decided that something weird was happening and correctly triggered its safeties. In this case, an immediate shutdown.

An extended recovery time (had this been a real reactor) was of no consequence compared to safety in the face of what might be an attack.

"After explaining all this to the now-silent room," Ellen said, "I finished with telling the Director of Power Generation that it was not our fault."

"It was someone, mentioning no names, who had disassembled our equipment and had misused our software and hardware, all before we had handed it over. The system did exactly what it was supposed to."

"And whilst simulating a reactor scram was not part of the tests, we now knew it worked."

The US contractor did the equivalent of falling on his sword. Puce-faced, he left the room, was apparently fired the same day and packed on the next plane home.

Again, this was not a real reactor and Ellen knew that the team could get back online in a matter of hours. However, "I shamelessly lied through my teeth, told the assembled team it would take me at least two weeks to reassemble the equipment, recommission all of our test and control equipment, and that I was declaring force majeure as per the contract, but I would not report the damage back to my head office."

The room was filled with apologies and gratitude that she would not be taking the issue further and that there had been no unpleasantness. The time extension? No problem it was granted.

The team finished well ahead of time and bonuses were dispensed all round.

"And that," she said, "is how I was accused of nearly wiping [region redacted] off the map."

Ever had your bottom rescued by a fail-safe? Or been called out at an ungodly hour to deal with someone else's mistake? Of course you have, and you should share your story with an email to On Call.

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The problem

BETOcare UK was first approached by Willmott Dixon in relation to its project at The University of Birmingham in July 2019 when a concrete sub-contractor has struggled to deliver the required standard of finish on an early part of the project; a concrete stair core in the basement.

Delays affecting the vehicles transporting the concrete to site, as well as poor compaction, caused a cold join to form within the core, which created a sub-standard aesthetic finish on the 50,000 section.

Understandably, it was a cause for concern among all those involved, not least Jack Brooker, Senior Building Manager, Willmott Dixon, who oversaw all of the exposed concrete features across the project: Exposed visual concrete was a crucial part of the overall architectural vision, centred around a four-storey atrium at the heart of the building, and there were extremely high specification requirements for the concrete finishes throughout.

One of the key aims, and part of the educational vision, was to expose the buildings frame in as many areas as possible columns, beams, atrium, stairs, bridge sections as well as specialist features. So it was critical that the look of the concrete was excellent. I think its fair to say that this was not the start that anyone had hoped for, particularly given that the building was set to be the home of some of the UKs leading engineering research talent for many years to come.

Potential remedies

Various options were considered to rectify the problem, and given the high standard of finish required, the drastic step of demolishing and re-casting the entire section over 400 square metres of concrete in total was one considered.

However, whilst this solution offered the possibility of improving on the finish during the second attempt, it presented the issue of significant delays at the very start of a 12 month project, not to mention the major environmental consequences of doing so.

As a result, Willmott Dixon decided to further explore some less common and more innovative alternatives to resolve the issue, and it was as a result of this work that BETOcare UK was consulted.

BETOcare UK Director James Lewis: When we first visited the site, there was, understandably, considerable concern. The finish of the section was poor and there was a very visible undulating line all along one concrete section. However, such issues are common problems, and I immediately knew it was one that we could easily remedy.

The initial consultation was followed by the BETOcare UK team undertaking a small test sample in situ to demonstrate what could be achieved, a process which took two days. No fewer than five Clerks of Work from the University reviewed the test sample, and together with the Willmott Dixon team, it was agreed that the BETOcare solution was the best way to resolve the issue.

Jack Brooker: There was an immediate sense of relief amongst the team. Wed found a solution that our client was not only happy, but delighted, with, but the BETOcare approach meant that we had negated the need to knock down a perfectly structurally sound core. The environmental as well as financial costs, delays and associated impacts of doing so would have been significant.

Sustainability is very much at the core of Willmott Dixons approach as a business (it has been a net zero / carbon neutral business since 2012) and has committed to all of its new buildings and major refurbishments being net zero operational carbon by 2030.

BETOcare UK arrives on site

Once the BETOcare approach had been agreed, it was then a case of waiting until the later stages of the project when the building was watertight to bring the BETOcare UK team in to work their magic. This also meant that all of the projects visual concrete work could be assessed and any additional issues included in BETOcares corrective work, if needed.

In the summer of 2020 work commenced on site.

The BETOcare approach enables the full range of common concrete imperfections to be corrected, from water damage and staining, to cold joints and faults, as well as post-construction damage or errors such mis-placed bolt holes. In addition to the original problem section of the basement core cold join, BETOcare addressed many of these common issues as part of its work on the project.

BETOcare UKs work on the project focused on using lime-based fillers and specialist colour-matching techniques combined with specialist craftsmanship and expertise. The approach was pioneered in Germany approximately 15 years ago and BETOcare UK is the only company to be licensed to use the approach and products in the UK, also undertaking work internationally.

Its growing reputation has led to its implementation in an increasing number of high-profile projects including Tate St Ives, award-winning Faylands House and the Investcorp Building at St Anthonys College at The University of Oxford.

Jack Brooker: The work with the BETOcare team was very collaborative and they were great to work with at a time when there was a lot of pressure to stick to schedule. For example, we had a very tight window to get the concrete work completed in the main atrium before the underfloor heating was installed, and only a few days use of the spider cherry picker required to enable the work. If there had been delays in BETOcare finishing the work, it would have had a significant knock-on effect.

There is a real art to the work they undertake, and they were extremely adept producing a very high quality finish, but also knowing when to stop, which is vital as concrete finishes tend to be a very subjective area.

The results

Overall, I would say that we saved a six-figure sum by using BETOcare to resolve the visual concrete issues we had with, and that doesnt include the financial costs that would have been associated with the considerable delays we would have seen with other, more traditional, resolutions to the problem says Jack Brooker, Senior Building Manager, Willmott Dixon.

The environmental benefits to using BETOcare were also important to Willmott Dixon, which had also used blended concrete mixes to help achieve BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) credits.

But perhaps most important of all, for a company that prides itself on the longevity of its relationships with clients, Willmott Dixon was also very keen that the completed work met the clients expectations. The finish of BETOcares work was outstanding, but ultimately as with any project, it is the client that decides what is and isnt acceptable, and the Universitys project manager was closely involved during every stage. He was very fair and reasonable, but his standards were high, and we knew that both the finish and the integrity of the work had to be high. Thankfully, he was delighted. Jack concludes.

The School of Engineering building project was Willmott Dixons sixth project for the University of Birmingham in four years.

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Concrete excellence at the University of Birmingham's School of Engineering - Premier Construction Magazine

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