Australian Engineering Week 2010

Today begins Australian Engineering Week 2010. You can get a full run down on all the events at Make It So which you might recognise as a tribute to the Star Trek series.

It got me thinking about why I got started in Engineering. It was music. I had done 1 year of a Science degree focusing on Physics and Chemistry at Deakin University and had taken a year off because I had no idea why I was doing a degree. So I worked a few mundane jobs and joined a pub band. We were pretty bad. I had only started playing guitar a year before that. The equipment was low grade and needed a lot of maintenance and I was constantly trying to improve the PA, the mixer, the guitar and amplifier and the effects. They were all analogue electronics in those days. It was mostly trial and error and occasionally trial and success!

What if I knew enough about Electronics to be able to improve, or even design from scratch, my own guitar effects pedals, guitar amplifiers, mixing desks and PA system?

But where would I learn that? So I went back to Deakin University and asked them. And they suggested Engineering. I had mostly thought of Engineering as roads, buildings, bridges and transport so this was a new type of Engineering for me. But I was also hooked.

Four years later with a First Class Honours Degree in Electrical Engineering I was doing just what I had set out to do. Electronics Design was now a part of who I was, not just an area of study. My rig was designed and built by me. And I also doing electronics design and custom pro-audio equipment construction for recording studios and professional musicians.

Ray Keefe has been developing high quality and market leading electronics products in Australia for nearly 30 years. For more information go to his LinkedIn profile. This post is Copyright © 2010 Successful Endeavours Pty Ltd.