Ask - Engineering for industrial designers and inventors: fundamentals for designers of wonderful things

by Thomas Ask

Copyright 2016 Thomas Ask. All rights reserved.

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• April 2016: First Edition

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978-1-491-93261-2

[LSI]

We are all impatient. We want everything at our fingertips on demand. What this book does is cut to the core elements of mechanical engineering without interrupting your study with too much noise. The theory is rigorous, the math is not. I prefer qualitative descriptions and analogies over math. The goal of this book is to make mechanical engineering a real tool in your inventive, creative tool belt. I want you to understand basic concepts that can inform the copious decisions required when designing a real object. Reading a book is certainly a test of patience, and I admire your foray into this walk together. Your time is under assault by many things. Your slices of open time are presented with enticing tweets and games so that your time is not linear and logical but rather a polymodal blend of grand endeavors and tiny treats. Where is the time for reflection?

Death by Video

Drunken eyes seducing minds
Flashing fluorescence digging

Synapses fire on and off
on and off
on and off

Eyes blink only for water
Gently cooling heated sight
Washing across digital rough
As the synapses fire on and off

Chant a dirge or scumble color
While watching forced slumber

Noises zipping, busy, fuzzy dots
Blinking, blanching, watching plots

Jam the mind in a keyboard crack
Waiting on your electro-sausage.

Synapses. fire. on. and. off.
on. and. off.
on. and. off.

Thomas Ask (Excelsior Review, Issue No. 5, April 2015)

This book is for creators, content providers, inventors, and those who create mechanical marvels from the void. It is for those who work in all three dimensions and strive to take their wonderful ideas and move them to reality. We all wish to be experts in something. We self-identify our qualities, develop a group affiliation, and protect that in which we take pride. The often unspoken secret is that we can be good in multiple thingswe can learn, adapt, and morph as we fight complacency.

Many of us bounce ideas around in our mind and with friends and family. These ideas bring us great promise, joy, and wonder. However, turning ideas into functional products requires specific technical knowledge. During the creative process of design, this knowledge needs to be visceral and drawn from the fingertips like yellow, crackling lightning bolts. You dont want to have to look up information and analyze something, you just want to design. You want to stand on the shoulders of giants, mixing your delightful creativity with engineering.