Tag Archives: engineering

Reaction Grid: Building Community, Nurturing Business, and Throwing Tomatoes

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3-D Digital Aerator for Sewage LagoonBack in 2006, I decided to join and explore the Second Life community in order to find out how it could help me as an engineer. I was also interested in finding out how it could help promote our community. As I became more involved, I realized there was even more potential to virtual worlds than I had imagined. Over the years, I eventually saw more ideas and uses emerge.

However, the main community of Second Life is not there in order to develop engineering uses for this technology. And while there are some isolated examples of people using Second Life for serious business and there are many education-based communities, there still is not a large, organized community for developing engineering-related tools in-world.

Another challenge for me has been that Linden Lab, the company behind Second Life, does not appear to be focused on the use of their technology for engineering-related work. Many have asked for the capability to import/export CAD drawings and have received little to no support. Linden Lab also seems to waver and change their terms of service a lot making it difficult for people to make commitments for its use as a design or operating platform.

I had hoped that all of this would eventually develop, but instead what seems to have happened is that a group has migrated from Second Life Reaction Grid Welcome Areaover to another “grid” or virtual world called Reaction Grid. I knew the members of this group were more focused on the use of virtual worlds for business and engineering so I visited. Now I am hopeful that I have finally found the grid I had been searching for to help me focus on the engineering and business aspects of virtual worlds.

Not only are most of the residents of this grid very intent on using virtual worlds to enhance business, but the people running the grid are interested and involved in the projects that their residents are developing and working on. They are also involved in helping all of us better understand the technology behind virtual worlds.

I think this involvement in community, which is somewhat opposite of the hands-off approach of the Second Life grid, is important for several reasons. First, if we are to leverage this technology for our work, we need to have a good understanding of how it works and its capabilities. I like that the people running the grid have invested in hosting events and classes to help us in this endeavor because I think the faster everyone learns the technology, the faster the grid will develop.

Second, what this does is encourage more residents to also get involved in helping to move development forward, not only with their own projects, but with the grid as a whole. I think the ThinkBalm Innovation Community site ThinkBalm Site on Reaction Gridon Reaction Grid is indicative of this commitment to community. This group, which is dedicated to advancement of the Immersive Internet, is based on the collaboration and sharing of ideas.

Next, some of us who are interested in using virtual worlds do not have all the skills necessary to completely develop our own projects. Working within a grid that promotes involvement makes it much easier to find others who might be willing to help.

I recently had an experience that illustrates this: In an effort to show others in my field the benefits of virtual worlds, I have been trying to set up a simple 3-D SCADA. I know it can be done, I am convinced that this is where our operating technology will soon be for our water and wastewater plants, and I know it is something to which everyone in my field could immediately relate. But trying to find a programmer in Second Life who understood what I was talking about and who was willing to do this was impossible.

3-D Fuel Facility in Reaction GridHowever, over on Reaction Grid, there were several who immediately knew what I was trying to accomplish. The owner even built a demonstration project on the grid showing how a fuel facility could monitor fuel levels and then notify operations when the tanks needed to be refilled. Now I finally feel there might be a chance I will one day help introduce virtual worlds to engineers and operators using a 3-D SCADA demonstration.

One other attraction for me has been the approach that Reaction Grid has taken to building a grid. Instead of buying land and paying tier (tax) as we do in Second Life, on Reaction Grid, you can pay to host a sim which reminds me much more of how Websites are hosted and set up. That seems like a much more viable and long-term business solution for the creation and hosting of virtual worlds. Particularly now that the hypergrid technology has been implemented. Second Life is now a walled garden that you cannot leave while these other grids allow you to move from grid to grid just like we do between Websites.

Aside from all this business, I do have to admit, there is also an element of fun to virtual worlds that increases their appeal. And attending interesting virtual events does help to further connections and community. I think Second Life has a lot to offer along these lines, and even though Reaction Grid is more focused on business, they also incorporate Fright Night on Reaction Gridinteresting builds and fun events. One of the most entertaining events on the grid has been Fright Night – an event that is set up like a drive-in movie theater where we watch great, old, creepy shows and throw tomatoes at the screen. I know that is where I will try to be every Saturday night. And whether you are interested in developing an engineering project or throwing tomatoes at a movie screen, Reaction Grid seems to be the place to be.

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Losing Your Creativity

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A couple weeks ago, I attended a meeting with our local business association to hear and participate in a discussion about tax increment financing districts (TIFs). Our TIF attorney made a comment at the meeting something to the effect that “infrastructure is not sexy.” At the time, I interjected my disagreement with his assessment; everyone laughed, and I really didn’t think much more about it until later.

But the more I thought about it, the more I had to admit that the general public would probably agree with our TIF attorney. Why is that? There was a time when people were impressed by the achievements of engineers and public works employees. Our contributions to bettering the lives of people were welcomed and appreciated. Now what we achieve seems to be taken for granted, dismissed, ignored, or worse yet criticized. Only within the confines of our own professional groups are these achievements awarded.

But most of us are not working each day trying to win an award or mass recognition for our designs or projects. So why should this change in attitude concern the average public works person?

The critical issue here is that this change in attitude seems to be leading to a complete dismissal of our profession as one that requires creativity in order to deliver a quality product. I realize that even amongst ourselves this may not be apparent because we really do not talk about ourselves or our profession as one that relies on creativity. But each day we face problems that rarely have obvious solutions, and the way we solve them is to tap into our creative abilities to assess situations, many times “think outside of the box,” and then derive the most efficient, acceptable, and cost effective solution that works. And we do this without even thinking about how we do it.

So if we are automatically doing this, why should we be worried about how others view us and our work? Because at one time, when the general public was still awed by our achievements, we were left alone to create, solve problems, and produce. As the world has progressed, this is no longer the case – the companies and agencies for which we work have made changes to staffing and policies that are now stifling the creativity on which we rely.

We now have supervisors who are not trained in our field and don’t understand the thought processes and work environments we need in order to achieve success. With fewer employees in our divisions and groups, we are pushed to achieve more in a shorter amount of time. Politicians often do not heed advice from professionals and experts in a certain field which leads to an imposition of policies and regulations that simply do not work.

I suppose there may still be a lucky few who have not had to experience these types of changes, but from what I can see and from the conversations I have with other professionals, there does not seem to be many of the lucky ones. Instead I hear of engineers who are having to “clock in and out” in a manner similar to that of a factory worker because some accountant for some government agency has decided that the employee might spend an extra 5 minutes or so at lunch.

For myself, I don’t have that problem, but I do have coworkers who are not in the public works department who simply cannot comprehend why I would need to work uninterrupted on anything. And they are unrelenting in their criticism should I try to just shut the door or not answer the phone for any time period at all.

So what is the result of these changes? I see and hear about designs and projects that no longer are the best or most efficient or even well thought out. This obviously leads to, at the least, increased construction costs and a waste of resources, and, at the worst, failures and a potential for loss of lives.

I agree that we as a nation need to invest more in infrastructure, and I think the average citizen would agree, but more importantly, should this funding one day arrive, we need to spend it wisely by coming up with the best designs. And this is only going to happen if we invest in our own creativity despite the obstacles trying to diminish this vital ability.

Next post – Finding your creativity.

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Science Conference Held in Sewer

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The second day of the World of Warcraft Science Conference was held in the sewers in the Undercity. Wow, for a civil engineer like me, it doesn’t get any better than that. How can you not love a conference held in a sewer? Unfortunately my husband and I had to show up late because we picked up our daughter earlier that morning from college and brought her home. At least we hit the tail end of the presentation and then were able to participate in the expedition.
Science Conference in the Sewers of the Undercity
My husband said it was the best conference he has ever been to. But I can’t help but wonder what the state licensing board would think if I tried to turn in professional development hours for it.

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Oh where have all the good consultants gone?

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I don’t know what it is with our city, but we have never been able to find an engineering consultant that can actually deliver a design of a treatment system, water or wastewater, that works or that meets our design and operation requirements. With the ever growing number of engineering consultants out there, how can this be? I am starting to wonder if this is just something common with all engineering designs delivered by a consultant (thinking of the big dig project) or do we just have bad luck?

After going through last years debacle of having the consultant for our new wastewater plant deliver a full set of plans of a plant that was actually located about a mile from the property on which the plant was supposed to go and located on property not even owned by the city, to our most recent problem with MACTEC engineering, the company providing design/build services for our water treatment plant reconstruction.

This project is a few weeks from what should be completion. The project was supposed to fix the original plant’s design that was completely messed up by the original design consultant that is now out of business. (The city actually had to sue the company after the plant was built to recover at least a small portion of the damages caused by design problems.) After waiting for 15 years, and suffering through an operational nightmare every day, the operators and I were more than ready to see everything finally designed, built, and operated as a plant should be. We had spent 15 years telling everyone who walked through the plant door what was wrong and what we wanted fixed – including the new design consultant – MACTEC. MACTEC had actually been involved in assessing the problems caused by the first consultant so we thought they were fully aware of all the issues and knew exactly what we wanted. Even so we spent several meetings going through it all again.

So the plans were drawn, and the construction began. Last week I got a call from our operator who told me the engineer for the project had called him to ask him how they were going to manage to control and operate the plant – the project is almost done and the project engineer is asking our operator how it is going to run! (The control people thought it was actually going to operate a totally different way with components that had not even been installed.) I called the project engineer who kept telling me to just ask my operator – he was supposed to know how it all would work. And if I had a problem with it, it must be the operator’s fault I guess. So we had a meeting with one of the principles of the firm. He tells me that they will fix the problem and come back with a solution that we could accept. I told him that we no longer wanted that project engineer involved.

Today, after not hearing back and finding out the control people are now calling our operator to figure out how to control the plant, I tried to call the principal who was not in. Instead I got called back by the project engineer who tried to convince me how much better his design was from what we had.

So even though I was not happy about the principal arranging to have this engineer contact me after I had asked him to remove him from the project, I decided to allow the engineer to try to explain to me from a purely engineering viewpoint how a small portion of the system would work. Basically we have a tank open to atmosphere with a set operating range. A pipe feeds two pressure filters from this tank. I asked him the operating pressure and flow for the pressure tanks and the operating range for the other tank levels – he could not tell me. HE DIDN’T KNOW!! This is the project engineer for the project.

Then I tried to ask him how he was going to ensure a specific flow and pressure into the pressure tanks, and he didn’t know that either – another engineer with him told me they were going to use a butterfly valve that we already have installed – the same one that we specifically told him we did not want to use to control the plant. He not only kept it in, but he is using it in the same capacity that we already use it which has been the primary control issue and problem since the plant was built.

I am starting to think that consultants only meet with us so they can get out of the office and bill someone. Then when they are in the meeting with us, and we think they are listening to all of our concerns and problems, they are really thinking “blah blah blah” like Homer Simpson does. Then they happily go back to their office, start designing whatever they want, then send us the bill.

When I pretty much went crazy after finding out that this engineer built his new design and control around the very valve that we told him to get rid of, he said I wasn’t being fair. He irresponsibly spends over a million dollars of our taxpayer’s money, and I am not being fair to him.

Anyway, I ended up doing what I have to do every time this happens to us – sit down and figure out how to fix it all. Finally I eventually came up with a solution that should work, will still salvage all that we have just built, and require the minimal amount of extra investment possible. Tomorrow I will meet with our operators and call our pump supplier and hopefully they all agree that this solution works. Then we can pay off the consultant for services so far and say a fond farewell to yet another design fiasco.

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