Engineering – Page 9 – Geeky Girl Engineer

It’s Not Individualism or Bad Fashion, It’s Sexism

Posted on November 12, 2014 by geek

I once hypothesized that male heterosexual scientists and engineers single-handily keep the Hawaiian shirt industry in business. Don’t ask me why, but as a group, they love those shirts. I make jokes about their lack of fashion and just plain dressing ability. I tease because I love. I love their individualism, and I love how they don’t know or care about fashion. I may be a female heterosexual scientist and engineer, but I am one of them when it comes to dress. The last time I remember being fashionable was when I was in fifth grade. I don’t understand or like many fashions. I have my own style, and I like to look nice, but I consider my ability to wear jeans to work and not even own a suit, a serious perk of my career (and employer).

And then there is this.

No no women are toooootally welcome in our community, just ask the dude in this shirt. https://t.co/r88QRzsqAm pic.twitter.com/XmhHKrNaq5

— Rose Eveleth (@roseveleth) November 12, 2014

This is Rosetta Project Scientist Matt Taylor of the European Space Agency (ESA) in a shirt covered in scantily clad women in in sexually suggestive poses. That is the shirt he chose to wear on a day when ESA did the amazing feat of landing a probe on a comet. This is the shirt he chose to wear on a day when he would be interviewed by the media and featured on live webcasts of the events. Not only did he not see a problem with this shirt, but evidently no one else at ESA did either. This. Is. Not. Acceptable. This is not appropriate. This is offensive. This shirt should not exist period, but it most certainly should not exist in the workplace. This is not about how ugly the shirt is. This is not about how unprofessional a shirt like that is. This is not about Dr. Taylor being an individual and expressing his style. This is about a shirt that objectifies women. This is about a shirt that is sexual harassment without Dr. Taylor even opening his mouth or making any type of gesture or doing absolutely anything other than wearing it. This is about a complete and utter lack of respect of women on the part of Dr. Taylor and evidently everybody at ESA who works with him and would have been in a position to say something. This about no one over there seeming to care about whether or not women feel comfortable working there when someone can wear a shirt like that. This about telling women it doesn’t matter your intelligence, skills, education, or ideas, you are but sex objects. The STEM fields continue to have a problem with sexism and gender inequality. My alma mater, a technical college, still only has about a 25% female student body. Wearing shirts like that to workplace will not help. It will not tell women that they are welcome. I quite frankly don’t care if Dr. Taylor is actually a really nice guy who is actually very supportive of women in STEM. His shirt says otherwise. He and ESA owe all of us an apology. That shirt overshadowed what should have been the main headline that ESA did the absolutely spectacular task of landing a probe on a comet. That shirt and the attitude it expressed ruined it for me in fact.

Finally, I would like to give mad props to Dr. Paul Coxon for his absolutely awesome idea, that if you want to wear a shirt with women on it, wear one with these women on it.

Awesome idea! RT @paulcoxon: @edyong209 @MCeeP @Mammals_Suck I’d wear a shirt with *these* women on: pic.twitter.com/egyu55QzpS

— Geeky Girl Engineer (@gkygirlengineer) November 12, 2014

These would be some of the women of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) celebrating after ISRO’s Mars Orbiter Spacecraft successfully entered the Mars orbit. And they are awesome.

Gowanus Canal

Posted on November 12, 2014 by geek

Last month while in New York, I spent some time walking around Gowanus Canal because I’m an environmental engineer, and I couldn’t resist an opportunity to visit a body of water, infamous for being incredibly polluted. The Gowanus Canal is a Superfund site due to contamination with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), volatile organic contaminants (VOCs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), pesticides, and metals. However, the Gowanus Canal is also polluted with more ordinary pollutants such as bacteria from untreated wastewater from combined sewer overflow outfalls and other urban pollutants from surface runoff (and possibly illegal outfalls). The area residents are understandably pushing to get the canal cleaned up quickly, and the cleanup is a joint effort between the city, state, and federal government. The area around the canal is an interesting mixture of industrial, art galleries, and up and coming residential. It is actually a nice area. There is a Whole Foods Market next to the canal that has a nice little canal walk on the property, which features signs that say “This is the greenest supermarket in New York State. No smoking, please.” I will take them at their word about being the greenest supermarket, as I did notice solar panels and wind turbines in the parking lot. However I still had to laugh at the irony of the sign. On the bright side, the Gowanus Canal is not so polluted that should someone smoke near it, it is not in danger of catching on fire, like the Cuyahoga River did in 1969. While I was walking along the canal, I spotted a small boat with two people who seemed to be monitoring the water and also two people in a canoe. I guess the canal is safe to canoe on, if you just make sure you don’t touch the water to your skin and most definitely don’t let any get into your mouth, nose, eyes, or any other orifices. The canal does not look that polluted. There are areas with floating trash, but there are very few places where I saw a sheen. When I was there it did not smell either, but evidently especially in summer, it can smell. However, it is a good example of how appearance is not a good way to tell if something is polluted. If you want to read more about the Gowanus Canal, this article in Popular Science is pretty interesting.

Northern end of the Gowanus Canal

Bridge on northern end

Carroll Street Bridge

Stormwater discharge warning sign

A wooden dolphin that had a book attached to the top as some sort of art or memorial

View from the Third Street Bridge

Survey boat

Third Street bridge

People actually canoe on the Gowanus Canal

Barge sitting on the canal

Fourth Street Basin, next to the Whole Foods Market, with some sort of art in the sculpture in the water

Gowanus Canal southern end

Gowanus Expressway

Liquid storage tanks

Bergen Sign Shop

Posted on October 30, 2014 by geek

Collection of old signs on the shop’s wall

I recently had a chance to tour New York City’s MTA’s Bergen Sign Shop. The Bergen Sign Shop is where all the signs for MTA’s subways are made and possibly a few other signs. The wonderful employees came in on a Saturday so that they could take two tour groups, from the New York Transit Museum, through the shop and show us how they make the signs. It was really neat to see and also interesting to hear how things have changed from the way things used to be made. Computers are now used for much of the process where as like many things, they used to have to be done by hand. Some of the signs they make are made like many of us make signs with regular ink jet printers, although they have massive printers with the biggest ink cartridges I have ever seen.

Safety first signs being printed in bulk. As an engineer, I particularly enjoyed seeing this.

All the “buttons”, the colored circles with the subway line letter or number, are printed on rolls of colored vinyl with adhesive backing. The line’s letter or number is then printed in black or white. A machine also cuts the circle into the vinyl, so employees just have to remove the excess from around the circles.

Rolls of vinyl in various colors ready for the printer. C line buttons being printed.

Drawer full of ready to go buttons. The buttons are made in 7 standard sizes.

They have another machine that just does detailed cutting of vinyl rolls. Once the vinyl has been cut, the excess is removed, and letters, numbers, and symbols are left in place. The letters are already spaced properly like they would be from a printer and are then transferred as a unit by an employee to a sign.

Roll of vinyl leaving the cutter.

The below, very short video is a series of photographs of an employee showing how he transfers the cut letters to a sign. The method he uses keeps all the letters spaced properly as they were spaced by the computer. The letters are transferred from the vinyl roll to transfer paper then to the sign.

Once the letters, buttons, etc. are on the sign, the sign is then laminated. It is later sent to the tin shop to be applied to a metal frame.

Sign being laminated

There is another machine that engraves signs and also applies to plastic beads to make braille signs.

Engraving machine

Temporary location sign with Braille.

In a separate room, they make frosted glass signs by applying a template and coating the glass with uv-activated substance. Ultraviolet light is then applied, and anything not covered by the template will be frosted.

Glass placed into machine where a vacuum will be applied and then it will be treated under ultraviolet light

Sign about to be treated under ultraviolet light

Sign being treated under ultraviolet light

Glass after being treated with uv light

In the back, they had the finished signs stacked up ready to be installed. They also had a supply of generic signs used in various places.

Spare generic signs stacked in storage

Finished signs ready to be installed

It was a really fun tour, and it was really neat to learn how the signs are made. Thanks to the New Your Transmit Museum and MTA employees for allowing us to take this tour and showing us how they do everything!

When an engineer gets to comment on building maintenance

Posted on August 6, 2014 by geek

One nice thing about where I work is that we get to fill out surveys about how we like the building we work in and comment on it. I have my doubts about how much they act on the survey results, or how much they pay attention to the comments if an employee bothers to give comments, but hey, it’s a great place to vent. I actually for the most part like my building. It is relatively new and doesn’t have the problems that many older buildings that my employer has has. It is kept clean and and looks nice. One big problem I have with it is the same that I have with almost every other office building: the temperature is set at a temperature that is comfortable for men not women. By about 11 am, once the HVAC has fully gotten the ambient air to the set point (as opposed to earlier in the day when it is ramping up after having been off during the night), the vast majority of women are walking around in sweaters, jackets, or blankets that all of us keep at our desk. [Spoiler: When I rule the world, I will dictate two things. Office buildings will be set at temperatures that are comfortable to women, not men. Also, public restrooms will be designed better. In particular, the stalls will be longer so that women don’t have to climb on the toilet to close the stall door. Truthfully there are many things that need to be improved in public restrooms, most of which I and many other people have covered is this somewhat comical, somewhat serious past blog post.] However, the building I work in has some of the worst plumbing issues I have ever seen, especially for a building that is less than ten years old. Ironically it has LEED certification, but whoever certifies it appears to ignore the obvious water wasting issues it has, as I detail below. I’ve decided to share below the comments I gave in the building survey, not because it will really accomplish anything, just as a way to vent and possibly to serve as a warning why if you let an engineer comment on a building with design and maintenance issues, you may get more than you wanted. Thus, my full comments are as follows.

With all the dual flush toilets, only one flush button actually works. With some toilets it is the half flush button, with some the full flush button. However whether or not the working button is actually whichever button it appears to be is unclear, or if they have possibly all been disabled and all converted to full flush. They constantly run. Almost every time I enter a restroom, I have to push the flush button on at least one toilet to get it to stop running. The restroom auto soap and water sinks are like sink roulette. Which sink will give me soap? Which sink will not continuously squirt soap at me? Which sink will give me water? It takes forever to get repairs done on issues in the pantry/kitchens. It took them two weeks or so to put a new aerator in the sink faucet. A part that can be bought at any time at Home Depot. It is not special. Maintenance blames pantry sink issues on reasons that are not the problem. On numerous occasions, water has come bubbling up from the drain pipes into the sink. Sometimes so much water has bubbled up that the sink has overflowed with disgusting brown wastewater. Then maintenance posts signs saying not to put coffee grounds down the drain as that caused issue. While coffee grounds will cause a sink with a bad garbage disposal to not allow the sink to drain (and putting coffee grounds down the drain is a bad idea), it will not cause water to flow up from pipes below. (I’m a chemical engineer I can prove this with fluid dynamics equations!) There is obviously some issue with the drain pipes below our floor, which any competent plumber or chemical engineer could tell you.

While there was no place to attach photos or videos, below is a photo of the backed up kitchen sink and video of it overflowing.

My office's pantry/kitchen sink when it was backed up and overflowing with wastewater. Photo was taken 1/8/2013.

My office’s pantry/kitchen sink when it was backed up and overflowing with wastewater. Photo and below video was taken 1/8/2013.

HAZWOPER Training

Posted on June 26, 2014 by geek

Last week I attended 40 hour HAZWOPER training. HAZWOPER, an acronym for Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response Standard, is OSHA mandated training for employees who may potentially be exposed to hazardous substances and who are engaged in cleanup operations or other certain other activities involving hazardous waste. Normally I work in an office, and the closest I come to hazardous materials or waste is sitting at a computer and analyzing data from hazardous waste sites. However, there is a possibility that I may sometimes be asked to go to a site where HAZWOPER training would be necessary, and I had an opportunity to take the training, so I did.

HAZWOPER training includes topics such as basic chemistry, toxicology, biology, radiation, environmental science, analytical sampling, and law and regulations. Truthfully, I could have taught a good portion of the training. It also includes hands on training with some of the sampling methods and instruments that are used in the field. Personally, I think playing with instruments and sampling materials is fun. As part of the training, you are required to get dressed in various personal protective equipment (PPE) that would be required under various circumstances at sites. In general, you look rather ridiculous in the PPE, but of course PPE is not supposed to be fashionable or make you look good, it is supposed to protect you from hazardous materials that could kill you or cause injury or illness. What PPE does not do, is keep you cool. It was in the 90’s °F when we were dressing in the PPE. While the suits protect you from most hazards, ironically they can cause potential health hazards if you over heat. There are different levels of PPE that are used depending on what the potential hazards are. The most protective is Level A, which is a fully encapsulating chemical-protective suit with positive pressure, full face-piece self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA), inner and out gloves, and boots.

Me in Level A PPE

The next level, Level B PPE, is slightly less protective and includes chemical-resistant coveralls instead of the fully encapsulating suit, as well as SCBA, inner and outer gloves, and boots.

Me in Level B PPE

The next level, Level C PPE, is less protective still. It includes an air purifying respirator instead of SCBA, but other than that is fairly similar to Level B.

Me in Level C PPE

There is one final level, which is Level D PPE, which is minimal protection from physical hazards but does not include respiratory protection. This may sound strange, but if it is hot, Level A is actually easier to wear than B or C. The fully encapsulating suit is roomier, and the compressed air is continually blowing through your mask and then through the suit itself before it exits an exhaust vent. This air flow helps to cool you. In the chemical resistant suit for Level B and C, I just felt like a turkey that had been baked in a cooking bag. Side note, the SCBA tanks we used were made of a composite material and weighed about a third of the weight of the metal SCUBA tanks I have worn before. Also, for as cumbersome as it was to get dressed out in all the PPE, I think it was easier to dress in and walk around in the PPE compared to the SCUBA drysuit I was wearing a month beforehand while SCUBA diving Silfra. Obviously once underwater, the tank weight is negligible, and the drysuit becomes less cumbersome, but above water, they are really difficult to get into and move.

For HAZWOPER training, you don’t just have to get dressed in the different levels, you need to get used to actually moving and doing various tasks in them. Hence, when we first wore them, our tasks were to play with balls, as one would normally do at a hazardous waste site.

Playing ball in Level A PPE

Playing ball in Level C PPE

Note in the above photo, the person in the center is wearing proper head protection in the form of a straw cowboy hat. No, he actually just being fashionable. Wearing hazardous material PPE is no reason to not be fashionable.

We also did a few exercises to practice tasks at a hazardous materials site, including decontamination. There are set steps and tasks to make sure decontamination is done properly. The first pair of people wash the worker, the second pair wash the worker again, the third set inspect the cleaning, and the fourth set help the worker out of the PPE. Notice the use of walkers for the worker to hold onto while the decontamination team washes the boots. There is no dignity in any of this.

Decontamination practice

We also practiced emergency decontamination of an incapacitated worker. We actually did not finish this task. This was due to the fact that after they started decontaminating him, someone loudly said, maybe we will have to do mouth to mouth. At that point, the incapacitated worker suddenly regained conscienness and took off running.

Emergency decontamination of an incapacitated worker

Since this was practice and not a real situation, we did a few things you can’t do on a real site. For example, the decontamination team stayed inside when not needed outside and did various things to stay cool. One thing that we did was lay on the concrete floor because the concrete was cooler than the air, and it absorbed some of your body heat. Sure, we looked like casualties at a hazardous waste site, but it worked and helped keep us cooler.

Cooling off by laying on the concrete floor

We also took “hits” of the compressed air from the SCBA. The full face masks we wore were interchangeable for either air purifying filters or for the hose from SCBA. In between tasks, we didn’t wear either. However, we would attach the SCBA for short periods of time because the compressed air blowing into your mask helps to cool you.

Cooling off by attaching the SCBA to the mask

Another thing that should never be done at a real site was drinking water through the mask via a straw. Actually it might be acceptable to do this, assuming someone with clean hands put the straw in the bottle and then into your mask. It is not acceptable if you are doing this with your gloves.

Drinking water through the mask

For as hot as I was while in some of the PPE, I still had fun. I was out of the office, and that in itself was fun. Also, I learned a bit, and that is always fun.

Concrete Crushing

Posted on May 5, 2014 by geek

Excavators with concrete crushers attachments are badass. They just chomp concrete like most of us chomp on walnuts. The claw closes around the concrete, then chomp, and then there is rebar and small bits of concrete.

There is an old railroad bridge being destroyed over Four Mile Run between Arlington and Alexandria, Virginia. Here is video I shot of an excavator destroying what is left of a pier from the bridge.

Driving Pilings

Posted on March 27, 2014 by geek

There is a bridge that is being demolished near my office that is now my destination and entertainment on my daily lunchtime walks. I previously posted video of the demolition of a concrete column. The other day during my visit, a crane with a hanging vibratory hammer was driving steel sheet pilings into the riverbed to form a cofferdam. There was already a cofferdam around one of the bridge piers, which has now been demolished. I am assuming this new cofferdam will surround the next pier, so it can be removed. The before and after photos of the pilings being driven are below as well as video of it happening.

Driving pilings, before

Driving pilings, after

Excavator Destroys a Concrete Column

Posted on March 6, 2014 by geek

Excavator with concrete crusher twirling rebar

There is a bridge over Four Mile Run that connects Alexandria and Arlington, Virginia that is being destroyed. I love walking over near the site and watching the destruction take place. Today I took some video of (what I am fairly sure is) an excavator with a concrete crusher pound and crush the concrete of a former column. It then separated the rebar and twirled it like ribbon to consolidate it. So very cool to watch.

Very Model of a Modern Engineer-Scientist

Posted on February 12, 2014 by geek

This is one of those times, where I have a very silly conversation, and then I take it even farther than it really should go. I can’t exactly explain how it started, other than Biochem Belle from Twitter, noted she was waiting for the song Modern Major Scientist from Chemjobber. I chimed in with a few lines from “I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General” only one of which did I manipulate for a scientist. I realized that about half the lines of the song would not have to be altered for a scientist as opposed to a military person. So here is where I take it too far, with apologies and great respect to Gilbert and Sullivan.

I am the very model of a modern Engineer-Scientist,
I’ve information vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I know the kingdoms taxonomy, and I quote the sci papers historical
From The Lancet to Ecology, in order categorical;
I’m very well acquainted, too, with matters mathematical,
I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical,
About binomial theorem I’m teeming with a lot o’ news,
With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse.
I’m very good at integral and differential calculus;
I know the scientific names of beings animalculous:
In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Engineer-Scientist.
I know our engineering history, Imhotep and al-Jazari;
I understand acoustics, I know all types of VOCs,
I quote in equations all the laws thermodynamical,
In conics I can graph ellipses, hyperbolas, and parabolas;
I can tell undoubted amethyst from fluorite and lepidolite,
I know the croaking chorus of the Xenopus laevis!
Then I can name a chemical after I’ve seen its mass spectrum chromatograph,
And calculate its concentration with an internal standard added.
Then I can design a incinerator for hazardous waste destruction,
And tell you ev’ry detail of exposure risk reduction
In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Engineer-Scientist.
In fact, when I know what is meant by leukotriene and histomine,
When I can tell at sight a purine from a pyrimidine,
When such units as furlong and stones I’m more wary at,
And when I know precisely what is meant by ANSI hard hat,
When I have learnt what progress has been made in modern technology,
When I know more of statistics, microbiology, and toxicology –
In short, when I’ve a smattering of hydrogeology –
You’ll say a better Engineer-Scientist has never sat a gee.
For my science knowledge, because I’m nerdy and geeky,
Is never enough and I must always satisfy my curiosity;
But still, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Engineer-Scientist.

About Those Rail Ties, WMATA

Posted on January 21, 2014 by geek

WMATA’s new rail ties ad

Dear WMATA,

I saw your new ad while I walking into the Metro the other day. That is, the new ad where you tell your riders that your installing new rail ties to give us a more comfortable rise. Considering the purpose that rail ties serve, I am hopeful this type of maintenance will also give us customers a safer ride, but I’m not going to quibble on that. First, I would like to thank you for at least not insulting your customers, making an incredibly sexist stereotype, or presenting a vague statistic with absolutely no context that really conveys nothing in this ad, like you did in a certain ad from this new series of ads. I would also like to commend you on doing actual maintenance on your rail system. As an engineer, I am more aware than many of how important and needed regular maintenance is, and from what I have heard in the news, you weren’t actually aware of this fact until several years ago.

However, I do have a question for you about these new rail ties that you admit that we, the customers, might not notice. Exactly how would you like to your customers to notice these fantastic new rail ties? I mean this in all seriousness. After I saw this poster, I made a point of looking at the rail ties while I was standing on the platform waiting for my train. Both my originating and destination stations on this particular day were underground, and what I noticed is that there were no rail ties underneath the track in front of the platform. The rails were held in place by metal bracing of some sort that was attached directly to the concrete beneath the tracks and did not tie the two tracks together. As my name Geeky Girl Engineer might suggest, I am in fact a geeky engineer, and thus I became intrigued by this metal bracing holding the tracks at the platform. Thus far my internet searches have not led me to information as to what these braces are called, but since the braces only hold one track, they don’t seem to actually be rail ties. However, I could be wrong, and if you would like to educate me on what they are called, I would be happy to learn about it (in all seriousness).

The other thing I noticed about the track in the station, is that it is really hard to notice the rail ties or braces. To begin with, the station is dark. Second, the area where the track is, is mainly different shades of black as it’s rather dirty. I wouldn’t expect it to be clean, but the darkness makes it difficult to see any level of detail. Also, the platform tile closest to the edge is rather textured, and this makes it uncomfortable to stand there for very long to examine the tracks. I realize the textured tile is a safety design to make people realize how close to the edge they are and to keep people from standing there while waiting for the train and thus potentially falling onto the track. I think this is a good safety, and I am certainly not arguing against it. I am just pointing out that between the textured tile and simply not wanting to get too close to the edge, conditions are not really conducive to a person examining or admiring your new rail ties.

As for the rail ties that are under track between stations, well, those are kind of hard to see also. The Metro, as you are of course aware, is underground a significant portion of the time. There is no way to view rail ties at all while the train is underground. There is no way to view anything outside the train while the train is in motion underground. Quite frankly, you should be aware of this. I also looked at the track while the train was in motion above ground. I was able to view the track and see that there are wood ties holding the track in place, but that honestly was about it. Again, the train was in motion making it difficult to really examine details of the ties. I couldn’t say whether the ties I viewed were new or old. I’m not actually sure how I would be able to tell the difference. I’m fairly sure that old ties would be dirtier and probably darker than new ties, but I am not sure to what degree. Presumably if I saw an old and a new one side by side, I could tell the difference, but except for that case, I am not sure how I would. Thus, it would be nice if your ad touting your new rail ties would have educated me on how to tell the difference.

Again, I commend you for your maintenance work. I thank you for not insulting me or stereotyping me. However, I think you might want to rethink your ad. For safety reasons, I think it would be best if you did not encourage your customers to examine your rail ties.

Your observant and educated customer,

Geeky Girl Engineer