FIRST employee shares his path to becoming an engineer

Hey, FTC Community, what’s kickin’?

That’s right, it’s Engineer’s Week - a celebration of the coolest people, who design the coolest stuff humans can think up; a party for people who design makeup, shirts that don’t wrinkle, vessels that take us to space, metal that has memory, cars that go farther on less fuel, harness wind and water, create intelligent machines and software, and continue to make sure the roads and buildings that we frequent daily are constructed precisely to code. It’s a festival for critical thinkers, problem solvers, makers, tinkerers, coders, and designers.

My name is Nick, and I’m a Mechanical Engineer at FIRST.  I’d like to share my path to Engineering, and then I’ll finish up with what Engineering means to me on a more personal level.

Here we go!

I received my bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering in December of 2008 from Iowa State University – an overwhelming day to say the least.  I was crazy-excited to be holding on to a piece of paper that signified that I had met the scholastic requirements necessary to be called an Engineer. Wooo!! I’d done it. A dream of mine from the time I started middle school was finally realized. I was an engineer!

Middle school - weird, right? I got lucky, I guess. I decided early on that if I could tinker and problem solve for money one day, I’d be in pretty good shape. A family friend mentioned to me that they got to do that at work every day as an engineer. I made up my mind then and there. I was going to do justice to all of those LEGO spaceships and race cars, sketch pad drawings of machines, and wacky inventions in my head.

So, fast forward a couple of years and I'm teaching kids how to make LEGO robots as an undergrad at Iowa State, and then after graduation in FIRST Place. That’s right; I got paid to make LEGO Robots. It was awesome, but let’s get to the really good stuff.

In August of last year, I had the opportunity to join the FIRST Robotics Competition Engineering staff as a Mechanical Engineer. First order of business – design the game components for Aerial Assist. It was an exhilarating and scary feat to be completely honest. I was rusty, still a rookie, and wanted to make sure that I did a great job on a field that so many completely awesome teams would be busting tail to build a robot for.

I got to work learning the ins-and-outs of our new CAD package.  I spent about the first week looking through documentation, familiarizing myself with the game design meetings and the process that had gone into designing the game.

From there - for about the first month or so - I went pretty heavy into mechanical and structural design mode. I’m a visual person, so I sketched concepts and equations on the whiteboard-table that I share with my boss.

We then went into prototyping. I did some informal, dimensioned drawings of our parts for vendors and our welder.  It wasn't long after that I got to put my hands on a tangible object that had previously only existed in my head, on a whiteboard-table, and as a CAD model. The excitement I get from seeing designs transition from concept to reality is a huge point of motivation for me, and it continues to be, even after it’s happened loads of times. So that’s what I do as a Mechanical Engineer for FIRST – I design the components that make up the FRC Field.

So now that you know what I do and how I got here, I’d like to speak a little bit more to what it means to be an engineer.  For me, engineering is two very important things.

Firstly, it is important to me to have a creative outlet. My brain drives me a little crazy if I don’t get a chance to remove some of the ideas from it – like I’m running low on hard drive space or something. Engineering and mechanical design grant me that outlet. I get to spend some brain calories on fitment and system interaction, and I get paid for it. Pretty, sweet!

The other, and easily the most important thing about being an engineer for me, is that it’s the best tool I have to contribute to society in a meaningful way. It’s great that I get to use engineering to clear out my crazy head, and get paid to do so. But through my work at FIRST, I have the opportunity to inspire young people that have similar creativity-evacuation problems, to gain the tools that they need to be successful problem solvers, engineers, scientists, and people.

One quick, last note about me - I am surrounded by a small team of some of the smartest, hardest working engineers that I've ever met, and I am lucky to be able to call them colleagues and friends. They have all been doing this a lot longer than I have and their experience is invaluable. I love working with them and I can’t wait to continue learning from them in the future.

Nick Skripsky

FRC Mechanical Engineer