heres the video blog

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXbs3CcBFTg

Ethics

Ethics are something that most people believe in and most people don’t live out very well.  When it comes to clear cut things like drugs, stealing, murder, and other obviously wrong things, the vast majority of society fully respects these laws and don’t break them.  But when it comes to things like speeding or cheating or taking illegal shortcuts, etc, many people do not respect the law and find it easy to avoid.  I for one thought that I could speed and not get caught and for the two years after I got my license this was true.  But then everything went wrong and in four short months, I found myself in two accidents, with two tickets, on court supervision, and a huge bill to pay.  I have to say that I was lucky.  I learned my lesson without anyone getting hurt which looking back on my wild driving habits is a miracle.  But it shouldn’t have taken getting caught to change my habits.  I should have known all along that reckless driving is not acceptable just as many other habits that break the law are not.

Cheating is one of these things that is absolutely unacceptable.  Whether it is in high school, taking the ACT, in college, or in the workplace, cheating is unethical and will eventually have consequences.  One thing many people don’t realize is that even if they say they never get caught, they are only hurting themselves more in the long run.  In fact it would be much better if high school teachers cracked down and gave zero’s for cheating on tests to teach kids a lesson than have them continue those habits until they get kicked out of college or sued in the workplace.  Successful cheating encourages more cheating and whether or people care about ethics or not the benefits are not worth the risks!  Furthermore, from an ethics standpoint, which I find even more important than eventual success, the accumulated guilt of cheating your way to success must be awful.  I personally am proud of my success as a student, an athlete, and a person (aside from driving) because I know that I have earned every bit of it.  If I had cheated my way here, I for one, could not live with myself!

Everything thus far has been fairly straightforward.  Most people probably agree with what I have said so far because I haven’t really specified what I mean by cheating.  What I mean by cheating includes a wide variety of situations.  This includes taking shortcuts in work that save money but put the product in danger.  This includes using insider knowledge at one company in another to benefit the company.  This basically includes everything that is against the law and in the end it not only is the right thing to do ethically but saves money over time.  Look at the story of the Ford Pinto where Ford did a cost analysis and decided it was a better idea to put people’s lives in danger than to spend tons of money to recall the defective cars.  Not only was that unethical but in the long run people found out about that analysis and they lost way more money than they would have had they been honest.  Look at BP and the oil rig disaster in the gulf recently.  Sure they probably saved lots of money taking shortcuts but I can assure you that they lost way more money when the deepwater horizon blew up in their face, not to mention the future money they lost due to a collapse in their image as a company.

In the end, it is always better to be honest than to take unethical shortcuts even if you think you won’t get caught.  It is the right thing to do and even if you don’t care about what is right (which you should anyway), it will probably make you more successful in the future.

engineering ideas

Here are a few of my engineering ideas:
Build a bridge from Alaska to Russia.
Build robots who play different sports.
Build a helicopter sports car.

iFoundry Revealed sorta

In modeling iFoundry as a system, I have broken it down into pieces that makes the system as a whole easier to understand.  There were other things that I could have included in the system like the history and how it evolved, but I decided to make it simpler by only including things directly relevant to the operating of iFoundry at the moment.  The diagram itself is decently easy to understand.  There are various levels and sublevels starting with the founders and administrators of the overall program.  Using funding from the university, iFoundry (now more thought of as iEFX) is broken into subcategories.  There is the class part of iEFX and the iCommunity component.  The class has a lecture and lab weekly.  The iCommunity has a group iHouse meeting and then breaks up into individual iTeams.  Students participate in all of these and give feedback to the top of the chain with the administrators.  Students can also become ELA’s in the future who help with the labs while TA’s teach the lecture.  The entire purpose of the iFoundry is to take students from the Engineering Community, improve their engineering skills and put them back into the community with a deeper knowledge of what it means to be an engineer and how to best utilize their skills.  Whether or not this happens is debatable but the purpose is the same nevertheless.

To tell you the truth, I did not really gain that much insight from doing this analysis.  I already knew the system and this was just basically a way to organize my thoughts which I already knew.  Had this been a more complicated system, this probably would have helped much more.  I think the most interesting part of this diagram is at the bottom left where the purpose of iEFX is summed up.  iEFX takes students from the engineering community, teaches them how to be great engineers, then puts them back in the community with that knowledge.  The entire system is designed to do just that.  I don’t really see any unintended consequences that some entities actions might cause other than the feedback the students give.  If the feedback is bad, the top of the system needs to rethink the entire system.

Labeling of Fighter Jet Refueling Mid-Flight

Communicating, Writing and Presenting in Engineering – free-write

I apologize for continually coming back to the reference of my internship over the summer at Packer Engineering, but then again I don’t because it was such a good experience that helped me understand what engineering is all about. Over the summer at the company, I not only got the opportunity to do hands on work, but I also got the “opportunity” to communicate, write, and present. I’m kidding with the quotation marks of course because it really was a good opportunity, but I don’t like that kind of stuff normally. What I really found from this experience is a general concept that seems to apply to most areas of life. If I totally applied myself to the project and got excited about what I was doing even if it wasn’t actually overly exciting, then not only would the writing and presenting be more fun but the resulting product would also be better.
One example of this happening in the Packer Engineering internship was a PowerPoint presentation I had to do on a disaster in history. I picked to do research on the DC-10 plane crashes and I went into the project knowing almost nothing about planes let alone those specific plane crashes. I decided to attack the presentation from all angles. Not only would I make a good presentation, but I would find out everything I could about everything to do with airplanes. This research really created positive energy for me and the people around me. People around me started seeing how into my project I was and they told me they were excited to hear my presentation. Additionally, I got to speak with the head of the company, Dr. Packer, because Packer Engineering had been involved in investigating the crashes themselves. He described in extremely high detail the sequence of events that ended in disaster. After taking pages of notes from the conversation, I made sure I understood everything he said down to the nitty gritty. On a side note and just to get this in here (this is a free-write after all I can say whatever I want), the high school interns got to take a field trip to an airfield and I got to actually fly a plane (and I got paid to do this because it was “work” so ha!) After all my research on planes, flying one really reinforced my knowledge base. Usually, I have a slightly monotone voice while giving presentations, but this time, I didn’t even have to focus on having an interesting voice because I was naturally excited about my topic.
It was one of my best presentations ever and in my opinion it sums up what it means to give a presentation in engineering. Even if the subject may not be all that interesting to many people, if you get involved in your work, enjoy it, and learn everything you can about a subject, your presentation will have a much larger effect on people.

Networking

            My experience expanding my network involved talking with my math professor.  I am in a class called fundamental mathematics which is a course outside of the normal engineering requirements because I am aiming at getting a math minor.  Going into this class, I was pretty nervous because I am not particularly good at proofs – the main focus of this class.  One week, I had some homework questions and I decided to ask Professor D’Angelo, who was our teacher and author of our textbook, for some clarification.  After class, after I asked my first question, we got into a philosophical discussion about the application of mathematics.  He started talking about the reason the specific question was in the textbook.  He told me about his experience in Europe and how a reporter there had tried to convert the change in temperature in Celsius to Fahrenheit.  The reporter had just looked up the value of the change in Celsius and converted it directly to Fahrenheit and the paper had read that the temperature rose “68 degrees Fahrenheit” in one day which is ridiculous but was a mistake made in a major newspaper nevertheless.  My professor’s point was that sometimes even the little things need careful attention because it is easy to get confused and when you move to tougher problems, the little details need to be set in stone.

            We moved on to some of my other homework questions and even though we got off track it was great talking to a man who had such enthusiasm for his subject.  He told me about his motivations for writing the textbook and how this class has really been a culmination of his lifetime’s work.  It really gave me a new excitement for being in the class because now I viewed every problem differently.  They weren’t just yucky proofs anymore, they were puzzles waiting to be solved.  My math teacher and I talked for a very long time and I was glad that I had a chance to speak with him.  He even told me that based on the homework I had already done, if I continued to do well in the class he could write future recommendations for me to get into honors level math classes.  It made the class seem smaller and more friendly and every time he passed out papers and he knew my name it made me feel like I was more at home in this difficult strange math class.

This conversation and the future conversations to come with my math teacher make me more confident and also have helped my networking.  Although this is just a little step in this direction, I can relate it to the “How to be a star at work” article by Keller.  In a work or college environment, it is not enough to just sit back, do your work, and hope people notice you.  It really pays off to talk to the right people and be friendly and not be greedy with your time.  I could have been doing many other things during those 45 minutes talking with my professor but it was important to get to know him and not be anxious to go do my own thing.  Overall, this conversation is the start to a relationship and networking connection that I need to continue in the future.

Resume

Resume

MARC EDWARD DEETJEN
904 WEST GREEN ST
URBANA, IL 61801
630-388-8468
marc.deetjen@gmail.com
Work Experience
Jun 10 - Jul 10
Packer Engineering STEP internship
High School internship at Packer Engineering
Total Hours: 232
I worked for Packer Engineering as part of the High School STEP program. We engaged in a variety of projects and one of my major focuses was being on a team which was conducting testing on concrete panels as part of a billable project for the company.

Jun 07 - Aug 09
Tennis Coach
Karen O'Sullivan Summer Tennis Camp
Total Hours: 200
I worked with four-year-old's to high schoolers teaching tennis. I worked for one week in 2007 and three weeks in 2008 for 16 hours each of those weeks. In the summer of 2009, I worked there every week for 16 hours and have been asked to return next summer.

Sep 06 - Oct 09
Soccer Referee
Naperville Park District
Total Hours: 140
I have been a soccer referee for the Naperville Park District under Bob Trivett in the Fall and Spring from 2006 to 2009 as a FIFA certified soccer referee. In this job, I have refereed games for Kindergarten through 8th grade. I am currently a FIFA certified soccer referee as of 2010.

Jul 09 - Present
Private Math Tutor
Total Hours: 30
I began tutoring privately for friends I helped in the Literacy center who need additional help.

Jun 07 - Aug 09
Private Tennis Coach
Total Hours: 30
Over the 2008 and 2009 summers, I gave private lessons to a variety of levels of tennis players.
Education
University of Illinois
Champaign - Urbana
Enrolled in Mechanical Engineering for Fall 2010 Member of James Scholar Honors Program

Aug 06 - May 10
Naperville North High School
I attended Naperville North High School from 2006 to 2010 and came to NNHS for one period in eight grade (2005) for Honors Geometry. I earned straight A's with a 4.57 GPA on a 4.0 scale and ranked 8th in my class of 746.
Volunteer Service
Aug 08 - May 10
Literacy Center Tutor
Naperville North High School
Total Hours: 192
I tutored students in a wide range of subjects three times a week.

Jan 00 - Aug 09
Greeting Ministry
Evangelical Free Church of Naperville
Total Hours: 100
I have been a part of the Greeting Ministry at the Evangelical Free Church of Naperville since 2000. In this department, my dad and I worked together to greet and aid people coming into the church at the door.

Jun 08 - Present
Floor Facilitator
Dupage Children's Museum
Total Hours: 69
I am a Floor Facilitator at the Dupage Children's Museum and have volunteered for a total of 69 hours. I worked with a large range of kids aging from infants to teens and prompted them to explore the numerous areas of the museum.

Jun 08 - Jun 09
Safety Town Volunteer
Total Hours: 16
I worked with four and five year old's for a week at Safety Town in Naperville and provided a total of 16 volunteer hours over 2 years.

Jul 09 - Jul 09
Scarce Volunteer
Total Hours: 8
I have volunteered for 8 hours at Scarce which is a redistribution center for donated books and other materials. Many of the materials are sent to 3rd world countries for educational purposes. My job is to help sort and stack books or whatever other work may need to be done.


Jul 09 - Jul 09
Naperville Rib Fest Volunteer
Total Hours: 8
I volunteered for 8 hours and worked in the merchandise tent helping out in whatever way I was needed.
Extracurricular Activities
Aug 06 - May 10
Naperville North Math Team Captain
Total Hours: 500
Freshman year: team 1st in State, individual 6th in state, calculator team tied for 1st in state, school winner of the AMC 10 and AIME participant. Sophomore year: team 2nd in state, Freshman/Sophomore 2-person Team 5th in state, calculator team 2nd in state. Junior year: team 1st in state, individual 3rd in state, calculator team 1st in state, AIME participant. Senior Year: team 1st in DVC, individual 1st in DVC; team 1st in Regional, individual 2nd in Regional; team 2nd in state, Junior/Senior 2-person Team 4th in state, calculator team 1st in state, team captain.

Mar 07 - May 10
High School Varsity Tennis Team Captain
Freshman year: 2nd singles on Sophomore team, team 2nd in DuPage Valley Conference (DVC), individual 1st in DVC. Sophomore year: 2nd singles on Varsity, team 2nd in DVC, 1st in Regionals, individual 1st in DVC. Junior year: 2nd singles on Varsity, team 1st in DVC, 1st in Regionals. Senior Year: 2nd doubles and 3rd singles in DVC, team 2nd in DVC, 1st in Regionals, 10th in state, individual 1st in DVC, 4th in Regionals, state qualifier, captain. Play tennis year around at the Naperville Tennis Club, Score Tennis Club, and Oakbrook Tennis Club; USTA member 2005-2010, individual rank: 200 in 18's Midwest. Tennis coach for Karen O'Sullivan tennis camp 2007-2009.

Aug 06 - Oct 09
High School Varsity Soccer Team
Freshman year: started at outside midfield on Freshman A team. Sophomore year: started at outside midfield on Sophomore team. Junior year: started at outside midfield on JV team. Senior year: starter on Varsity team - DVC and Regional Champions, 16-3-4 record. Most improved player. Lightning Traveling Soccer team: 2000-2006, Galaxy Traveling Soccer team: 2006-2009.

Mar 09 - Mar 10
JETS (Junior Engineering Technical Society)
Team member for Varsity team; 2009 (JV): 2nd in state and 9th in nationals.

Jan 10 - Apr 10
WYSE (Worldwide Youth in Science and Engineering)
Varsity Team member competitor for math and physics; team 2nd in State, individual 2nd in state for math.


Feb 08 - Jun 08
ARML (American Regional Mathematics League)
I was on the developmental all star Chicago team for ARML world-wide math competition.

Oct 09 - May 10
National Honors Society
National Honors Society Member

Apr 02 - May 10
Alto Saxophone player
I have played alto sax since 2002 and have been in the top band at Naperville North, the symphonic wind ensemble from 2007 until 2010. I also played Alto sax in the church adult orchestra from 2007 to 2008 with twice a month performances. In my freshman year I played in the Jazz lab at our school.

Oct 09 - May 10
Huskie Leadership Program
I was invited to the Naperville North Huskie Leadership Program for athlete leaders which meets once a month to build leadership skills.
Awards/Certificates
May 10
Outstanding Male Scholar Athlete
Award awarded to the senior male athlete with four years of varsity experience with the highest cumulative GPA.

May 10
Top Ten
I was number eight in my graduating senior class at Naperville North out of 746 students.

May 10
Math Department Student of the Year
Student of the year in math for my dedication to math in class and in the math team.

Nov 09
National Merit Commended Student
Recognition for placing within the top five percent of students who took the 2008 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test.

Jan 10
Illinois State Scholar

Mar 09
AIME (American Invitational Mathematics Exam) participant
Grade 11
I qualified for the AIME by passing the difficult AMC 12 (American Mathematical Competition 12).

Mar 07
Certificate of Distinction - AMC10 (American Mathematics Contest 10)
Grade 9
The Mathematical Association of America - American Mathematics Competitions awarded me a Certificate of Distinction for superior performance on the American Mathematics Contests 10 (AMC 10) and qualifying to take the American Invitational Mathematics Examination (AIME). I was also the school winner in the AMC 10 and an AIME participant.

May 07
You Make a Difference
Grade 9
I was awarded the "You Make a Difference Award" for a "pleasant personality and for being a great example for peers".

May 09
Brown Book Award
Grade 11
Awarded to the one student who "best combines academic excellence with clarity in written and spoken expression".

Aug 09
AP Scholar with Honor
I received the AP Scholar with Honor award in recognition of exemplary college-level achievement on Advanced Placement Program Examinations: 4 on: English Language/Composition, 5’s on: Chemistry, Physics B, US History, BC Calculus, Statistics.

Distinguished Honor Roll
Grades 9,10,11,12
I was on the Distinguished Honor Roll for Naperville North High School each semester there.

4.0 Award
Grades 9,10,11,12
I achieved a 4.0 GPA or higher each semester at Naperville North High School.

All Academic All Conference Team
Grades 10,11,12
I was recognized for outstanding performance in Boys Tennis in combination with distinguished academics for both my sophomore and junior years on Varsity.

May 09
Third year Varsity award
Grades 10,11,12
I got the second year varsity award for being on varsity tennis for two years.

David Goldberg - The Missing Basics - What engineers need to learn

Although at points rather dry and repetitive, David Goldberg’s PowerPoint presentation and research brought about some valid and thought provoking problems in engineering education that need to be addressed. One problem that graduate engineers have when entering the work force is the inability to ask good questions. I actually had experience working as an intern for an engineering company last summer at Packer Engineering and can personally identify with this difficulty. One of the things I learned from that experience is that many times, asking good questions is a confidence issue. Maybe this not true for other people, but I usually have questions in my head that are relatively logical, but when I ask them, they don’t come out in the way I want them to. I could improve my question asking by practicing in class. This would give me more confidence in the future so my questions aren’t jumbled. Asking well thought out questions in class is not the only way to improve. If there was some way to create mock situations in iEFX where one would need to ask good questions in order to probe the problem at hand, that would be great practice for the real world. This would be similar to someone in the real world asking a client good questions to fully understand the problem at hand.
Another interesting point that Goldberg made that I myself need to improve on is the labeling of common systems, assemblies, and components of technology in industry. Again, in Packer, I had this same problem. Over the course of the six week internship, I gradually learned the lingo of the company pretty well, but when I get a job out of college, six weeks will be too long. I think that the solution to this would be to get more hands on experience in industry before I start my first real job out of college. This could be done through joining various engineering clubs that build hands on things using equipment which would be good to learn or by strongly pursuing internships in the summer to get hands on experience. Either way, it seems like reading from a book about the various tools and systems in the real world will not cut it and it is up to me to gain outside experience.
The last intriguing point I will write about is the inability to visualize. I find this to be an interesting problem because all my life I have enjoyed math and geometry and building things. I have not however, focused on recording those geometric shapes or buildings in sketches and this is an area that I don’t really know where my skill level is at. This, like the other areas that need improvement, is something that needs practice. This is something that I could actually practice on my own. I could take random complex objects and practice sketching them on paper with dimensions. At Packer, I saw this skill put to use when Jerry, a college intern I worked with, had to sketch the A-frame apparatus we were using to test concrete structures. I did not get the opportunity to do the sketches, but I can see how it is an important skill. Overall, all of these problems with engineers seem to have to do with being too book smart and not having as much hands on experience or not taking the extra steps personally to become a better engineer. It is good that I can realize these problems early on in my education so I can focus on strengthening these potential weaknesses at an early stage.
Mini-action Plan:
Asking Good Questions: 1. Continually ask good questions in class. 2. With a partner create a mock business situation in which I am the main interviewer and my partner is the client. I would need to ask good questions to find out what needs to be done to solve the problem. Due date: September 27th
Effective Labeling: 1. Join an engineering organization on campus. Due date: September 6th. 2. Update my resume to be ready for any internships that come up. Due date: August 30th
Visualization: Draw 5 random machines on campus to get better at sketching. Due date: September 27th

Reflection on Mechanical Engineering Curriculum:
When looking at the Mechanical Engineering curriculum flowchart, it is crazy how much math and science us engineers will get vs. the non-math or science exposure. Almost all of the engineers education is technical as opposed to learning the skills that also compose many times 50% of an engineer’s career – that is the “missing basics”. It is great that we have the opportunity in iEFX to get exposure to these “missing basics” but it will be up to us to continue to learn from this class in future years as it is not the focus of the curriculum.