Career: Combining Interests

[stratego]

What kind of jobs can you get with a psychology and a mechanical engineering degree? I don't really want to build a robot that can analyze why I built the robot. Any suggestions?

 

[Colonel Kraken]

I would imagine you would make an excellent consultant for companies and design teams. Understanding the needs and suggesting the solutions while consulting the design team.

 

[Pongui]

Ergonomics. Not just for the carpel-tunnel crowd; assembly line cogs and forklift drivers and so on.

EDIT: If I remember correctly, kung-fu stands about where you are. "The way of working" I think it means.

And architecture is static kung-fu. It makes you reach for a lightswitch before you even see where it is...

 

[Phantom Lord]

Industrial / usability design (car cockpits and the like, all those interfaces where man meets machine).

 

[newfangle]

I like that robot idea.

 

[Mojotronica]

Robotic AI -- designing robots that act like insects, for example.

Useful if you need a robot that is basically under human control, but able to make local level decisions that serve it's primary mission.

 

[Phantom Lord]

No AIs please - at the point where they become "intelligent" they may become impossible to test, I don't like that idea from a professional point view ...

 

[Pongui]

Furniture design? You know if that chair looks uncomfortable, it will be.

You might design workspaces like wall-to-wall touch-screen interactive Mars colony laboratories or oh yeah apartment kitchens too I guess. Plot the little people doing their triangles refrigerator to sink to stove and back, opening and closing the same cupboard in the same manner for the same item day in and day out. I'd aim for specifics, like patenting a magnetic drawer stop that makes a pleasant small thunk when closed, and other details on this scale. I trust you notice and get excited about little mechanical-psychological details like that.

Here's a problem: Many people will pile stuff too high in a drawer, causing some object to block the drawer stuck in the closed position. When I make a drawer (and you'll see many others did the same), I build the sides somewhat lower than the actual clearance for stuff crammed into the drawer. About an inch lower, depending on the overall scale and assumed use of the drawer. The lowered sides are supposed to trick users into loading the drawer more safely than they normally might. But some people have come to know this (unconsciously), so now like the proverbial fleas in the jar they compensate by loading a drawer slightly higher than the sides - one can plainly see that from investigating a few kitchens. Designers are losing the battle. Now, can you find another solution to this problem?

 

[nihilistic]

Originally posted by Mojotronica
Robotic AI -- designing robots that act like insects, for example.

Useful if you need a robot that is basically under human control, but able to make local level decisions that serve it's primary mission.

AI is not really a topic of mechanical engineering. It has almost nothing to do with engineering and physics and everything to do with computer science and math. And also, the learning curve (pun intended) for AI is quite steep.

 

[Mrogreturns]

What sort of psychology degree?

 

[stratego]

What sort of psychology degree?

I'm not sure yet, I'm only a sophomore and had been pursuing those two degrees. I'm think maybe towards criminal psychology or military propaganda.

 

[Ayatollah So]

Originally posted by stratego
I'm not sure yet, I'm only a sophomore and had been pursuing those two degrees. I'm think maybe towards criminal psychology or military propaganda.

Until you told us this, I would have strongly agreed with Sean Lindstrom and Phantom Lord: ergonomics. Ergonomics draws on what I think of as lower-level psychology. The basic brain functions and abilities out of which we are cobbled together to make grand personalities. Sounds like your interests are higher-level. Ergonomics is still badly needed. Most mechanical engineering curricula give it much less attention than it deserves.

I beg to differ with Nihilistic on Robotics/AI. It is true that as currently practiced (well, last time I looked - maybe it has changed), it is all about software. But animals rely heavily on mechanical governance systems, making less work for the brain, and roboticists would do well to imitate nature. With the right balances of elasticity and momentum, a legged robot can be made to walk with no electric control at all (given a slope, or a push). Alternatively, a robot can be constructed so that the CPU directly controls everything (lift leg#1 5 degrees at the hip joint; rotate leg #4 9 degrees forward; etc.). The latter approach is a waste of programmers' time.

 

[Ayatollah So]

Originally posted by Colonel Kraken
I would imagine you would make an excellent consultant for companies and design teams.

Along the same line, engineering management. Maybe you can come up with the necessary propaganda to make the design teams, the machinists, and the marketing department all work harmoniously. If you can do that, you're positively brilliant.

By the way, my degrees are in mechanical engineering and philosophy. But I never considered combining them into one career. Just doing the engineering.

Anyway, I didn't like the questions today's philosophers are asking. From Ancient to Early Modern times, they asked the big questions - basic metaphysics, ethics, political theory. But today's philosophers are typically asking:

Do you want fries with that?

 

[Phantom Lord]

Originally posted by Ayatollah So
It is true that as currently practiced (well, last time I looked - maybe it has changed), it is all about software. But animals rely heavily on mechanical governance systems, making less work for the brain, and roboticists would do well to imitate nature. With the right balances of elasticity and momentum, a legged robot can be made to walk with no electric control at all (given a slope, or a push). Alternatively, a robot can be constructed so that the CPU directly controls everything (lift leg#1 5 degrees at the hip joint; rotate leg #4 9 degrees forward; etc.). The latter approach is a waste of programmers' time.

Interesting, but I slightly disagree. Nature and robots (or other electronically controlled mechanical devices) share a common problem: Lightweight. A mechanical control device may only pay off if it doesn't add weight. The second point is reliability, an electronic system wears down slower than a mechanical one. That's why system decomposition usually leads to almost all funcionality being realized by software.

 

[Ayatollah So]

Originally posted by Phantom Lord
Nature and robots (or other electronically controlled mechanical devices) share a common problem: Lightweight. A mechanical control device may only pay off if it doesn't add weight. The second point is reliability, an electronic system wears down slower than a mechanical one.

There are certain weights that you're stuck with, regardless. For example, in animals, bones. By locating the joints in the right place, designing the range of motion and the elasticity of ligaments, you relieve the need for some brain-work. Make walking and running "come naturally" from a mechanical point of view.

I took a look on Google, and it turns out that roboticists are now well aware of the kinematic and dynamic advantages of nature's designs. Anyways, there you have a place where psych and mechanics meet: the tradeoff between mechanical and software controls. Once again though, we're talking "low-level" psychology. Neural networks, not criminology and military propaganda.

 

[Phantom Lord]

I of course agree that the mechanical part should be "intelligent" as far as possible. And there are many solutions in nature that are very intelligent concerning mechanics.

But back on topic:

Criminology and mechanics would naturally lead to quality assurance of mechanical devices.

Propaganda and mechanics lead to sales or marketing of technical products.