Think Like an Engineer: Use systematic thinking to solve everyday challenges & unlock the inherent values in them

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What does “establish patterns” mean? It means don’t just fix today’s problem, fix tomorrow’s too. I briefly searched the internet and here is how Wikipedia describes it: An algorithm does not solve a problem rather it gives you a series of steps that, if executed correctly, will result in a solution to a problem. An Example Algorithm Manually, you should step through your algorithm using each of the three test cases, making sure that the algorithm does indeed terminate and that you get your expected result. As our algorithms and programs become more complex, skilled programmers often break each test case into individual steps of the algorithm/program and indicate what the expected result of each step should be. When you write a detailed test case, you don’t necessarily need to specify the expected result for each test step if the result is obvious. Is it guaranteed to terminate? Yes. The input is of finite length, so after accepting the user’s number, even if it is negative, the algorithm will stop.

During her junior year, Aggarwal worked on a research project through EECS’s SuperUROP program with Rajeev Ram, professor of electrical engineering, in his Physical Optics and Electronics Group. The project she worked on was aimed at building a wearable optical health monitor. The point is that any problem can be approached as an engineer, and that this is an incredibly useful ability to have. Of course people who have ‘conventional’ engineering roles will think like this naturally and that’s what will have made them right for the job, but for the rest of us there is a lot to be said for learning this kind of thinking and applying it in our own lives and careers. So let’s look at how an engineer thinks. Problems to be SolvedGiven five cards randomly placed in a row like the ones below write an algorithm to sort the cards. How would your algorithm change if there were 10 cards? What about 100 cards? Write an algorithm that accepts a word and an integer from the user, and that prints a new encrypted word that contains the letters from the original word “rotated” by the given amount (the integer input). For example, “cheer” rotated by 7 is “jolly” and “melon” rotated by −10 is “cubed.” Write an algorithm which repeatedly accepts numbers until the user enters “done”. Once “done” is entered, display the total sum of all the numbers, the count of numbers entered, and the average of all the numbers.

Is it guaranteed to terminate? Yes. The input is of finite length, so after accepting the user’s number of words to enter and any characters typed on the keyboard, even if it is not a ‘word’ per say, the algorithm will stop. Aggarwal was happy with her decision to change majors, but missed some of the benefits of a small academic department she had experienced in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. With that in mind, I wanted to share some of the important things I have learned in over 10 years that can help accelerate your growth as an engineer. Establish patterns Aggarwal’s path to electrical engineering included a few stops along the way, as she discovered new disciplines and ways of approaching problems. An algorithm expects a defined set of inputs. For example, it might require two numbers where both numbers are greater than zero. Or it might require a word, or a list customer names.In September 2015, FormLabs launched Form 2, the printer that Aggarwal worked on. Much of her internship focused on troubleshooting. “My biggest contribution was actually that I used what I learned in a lot of my signals and systems courses at MIT to program the heater for the printer,” she says. Computational Thinking is the thought processes involved in formulating a problem and expressing its solution in a way that a computer—human or machine—can effectively carry out. This book introduces the core elements of engineering being modular thinking, structure, constraints and trade offs it it's basic concepts recombination, optimization, efficiency and prototyping. I think the biggest thing I’ve learned at MIT is that you really don’t know what you don’t know,” she says. “I had no idea what else was out there.” Computer science is the study of computation — what can be computed and how to compute it whereas computational thinking is:

output Display the results of the program on a screen or store them in a file or perhaps write them to a device like a speaker to play music or speak text. She describes this experience as “the hardest thing I’ve ever done at MIT.” She still loves acting, but she loves directing even more. “I have a passion for it, just like I have a passion for science,” she says — a fact that speaks to her decision to add a second major, in MIT’s Music and Theater Arts Section. Aggarwal grew up acting in school plays, but had stopped during high school to focus on science. At MIT, she discovered the student theater community and immediately decided to get involved. Is it general for any input? Yes. Any two numbers work in this design and only a choice of a’m’, ‘a’, or ‘s’ will result in numeric output.Is it unambiguous? Yes. Each step of the algorithm consists of uncomplicated operations, and translating each step into programming code is straight forward.