\u2018Doing Engineering\u2019<\/a> was the first of Engineering Life\u2019s experimental interdisciplinary workshops<\/a>. Our project focuses on the interaction of synthetic biology and engineering in their many different forms. As a result, we dedicated our first workshop to exploring just what constitutes \u2018engineering.\u2019 We invited synthetic biologists, engineers, social scientists, policy-makers, philosophers and historians for a day of presentations, conversations and reflections.<\/p>\n \u2018Doing Engineering\u2019 involved three dialogues, two roundtable discussions and three final reflections. The dialogues and discussions focused the basics of what engineering involves and what being an engineer entails, the engagement of synthetic biology with engineering, and the particular challenges faced by those trying to engineering with living things. The reflections were prepared by three participants as the day progressed, and each provided a distinctive perspective on what we accomplished through our dialogues and discussions.<\/p>\n However, the day began with each person introducing himself or herself. In the spirit of experimentation, we asked each participants to provide us with an image that for them captures what engineering is. As part of introducing ourselves, we explained why we chose that particular image. The images and the thoughts expressed differed from each other in many ways and captured how complex and diverse our understandings of engineering are. We found them so interesting that we decided to share them with a broader audience.<\/p>\n The \u2018Doing Engineering\u2019 website offers visitors the chance to explore what images our participants chose and what they said about them. It offers a unique way to approach the question, \u2018what is engineering?\u2019 It also allows visitors to chart their own path through our participants\u2019 thoughts.<\/p>\n The home page of the website presents our participants\u2019 images, as interpreted by illustrator Sara Julia Campbell<\/a>. Upon clicking any of our participants\u2019 images, a visitor is taken to a page which presents selections from what that particular participant told us about engineering. If clicked, each of those quotations reveals three quotations by other participants that capture similar ideas or offer a contradictory viewpoint. That is, each quotation reveals thoughts that expand, enlighten or challenge it. These thoughts by others also serve as links to different pages, each with those others\u2019 image and thoughts. These labyrinthine links let visitors decide how to wander through our many thoughts on engineering.<\/p>\n We offer people ideas, rather than tell them what to think. There is no single view of engineering that we advocate or hold to be better than the others. The \u2018Doing Engineering\u2019 website is a tool for people to explore engineering and with which to develop their own conclusions and opinions.<\/p>\n Visit \u2018Doing Engineering\u2019<\/a> and join us in our exploration of synthetic biology and engineering! Navigate your way through the images and ideas that we collected and discover new ways to think about professions that shape our world and our societies in countless ways.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Pablo Schyfter Engineering Life has launched a new website\u2014\u2018Doing Engineering\u2019\u2014that presents different perspectives on engineering in a novel and playful way. The website is based on one of our workshops and like that workshop, tries to find diverse and … Continue reading ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/engineering-life\/files\/2019\/03\/I-Emma-Frow-300x171.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThe workshop, in retrospect<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\u2018Doing Engineering,\u2019 the website<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Join our exploration<\/strong><\/h2>\n