I think you can drop the wannabe label. Of course you have a long way to go and much to learn but I think you are already an engineer, just one at the very start of what might be a great career.
I don't get the down voting. This dude is correct. An "engineer" is typical like a "doctor".
Yes I also carry the "system engineer" with me, and yes I have university background, but it's far far away from any serious engineering what's usually done by computer people.
I would also argue that an engineer more or less knows what he's doing and can predict the outcome. Most people I observe while they use a computer it's literally a monkey beating metal with flesh....
I'm an over-40 year old wannabe engineer too, except I didn't get as far as you on my little pet project: designing a 'universal' gear, based on professor Jack Phillips' work "General Spatial Involute Gearing." So far I can model the basic helicoids in Siemens NX, such that they touch along the ISA (Intermediate Screw Axis) which passes through the CDL (Center Distance Line) in between the gear axes. I have no clue how to proceed from there with actual involute teeth.
My idea is to at some point write an NX Open script/module, which takes in various parameters (like selecting the shaft/axes vectors; inputs ratio, pitch, etc.) and spits out something structured like my model.
Seriously impressive, you should be proud of yourself! As another (software) engineer your age, being able to be creative is always a thing to be happy about.
Don’t listen to people telling you not to post your age on the internet. This is solid work and you did this instead of being stuck in one of the hundreds of +1 dopamine traps in Roblox or yelling at other (often times much younger) kids in Fortnite like many of your peers did.
You did something meaningful, you even waited to share it with the world until version three, and you learned a ton doing it. Well done, dude!
What is it? Is this like a gear, where the output shaft turns at some fraction of the input shaft? Is better or worse than traditional toothed gears in some way?
They're pretty cool. They can be good in situations where you don't want any backlash and lots of torque. I believe they're very popular as actuators in robotics.
It acts like a gearbox, allowing you to sacrifice rotational speed for higher torque output. What makes this gearbox type special is their low backlash, multiple points of contact, and high efficiency.
Hey, you should join Hack Club! I was just at an event where a high schooler designed and built a continuous variable transmission (https://outpost.hackclub.com).
You’ll meet a ton of interesting, friendly teens who are all helping each other build awesome projects.
Cool project!
(Hack Club is a nonprofit and I’m the founder of it)
As a teenager that spent some time somewhat around Hack Club things, I felt that being a part of Hack Club pressured me to live live faster than I was ready to (like 16 year olds doing summer internships / cohabiting with their partners). I want to say a lot of the people I knew online on Hack Club Slack went to places like MIT, so I guess there's that, but there is some beauty in taking life more slowly. I also didn't want to be boxed into running my school's club with what Hack Club provided. I think they do good things (eg. Hack Club Bank helps students run events before they can financially) and I interacted with a lot of really cool people. But if it is anything like the past, I wanted to share this.
You can just join their Slack workspace (it's a bit like Discord) on their website: https://slack.hackclub.com/
Then in the #announcements channel you'll see all the different projects they're running, just pick and choose the ones that interest you.
I went to one of their meetups "Horizons Europa" last week and had a great time!
It's crazy that in 2018 a cellular automata written in JS by a 12 year old was considered special (which it is) and today, nobody would even bat an eye because you can just vibe code this without effort.
I'm going through this. It's demoralizing. I want to spend weeks coding something cool. The idea of asking an AI to do it in 30 minutes is like... what's even the point. I know I can, so why bother. I'd rather go get a beer.
It's like getting all the cheat codes and then the game isn't fun anymore.
This is a technical forum. One of the best traditions in engineering has always been taking beginners seriously and helping people who are trying to learn. Most of us are here because someone did the same for us. You come from a good place but I don't see why say a tech forum is a place you need to hide.
Those saying it's fine come from a good place. I come from a world where we see young people groomed, pursued and manipulated. There is no serious reason to posting your age as a minor on an adult forum.
I think you can drop the wannabe label. Of course you have a long way to go and much to learn but I think you are already an engineer, just one at the very start of what might be a great career.
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I don't get the down voting. This dude is correct. An "engineer" is typical like a "doctor". Yes I also carry the "system engineer" with me, and yes I have university background, but it's far far away from any serious engineering what's usually done by computer people. I would also argue that an engineer more or less knows what he's doing and can predict the outcome. Most people I observe while they use a computer it's literally a monkey beating metal with flesh....
"Engineer" is a floating signifier and there's no reason to pretend it's anything otherwise in the US.
Of course you can call yourself an engineer without formal training in the US. https://www.vice.com/en/article/man-fined-dollar500-for-crim... https://www.vice.com/en/article/oregon-unconstitutionally-fi...
Nice.
I'm an over-40 year old wannabe engineer too, except I didn't get as far as you on my little pet project: designing a 'universal' gear, based on professor Jack Phillips' work "General Spatial Involute Gearing." So far I can model the basic helicoids in Siemens NX, such that they touch along the ISA (Intermediate Screw Axis) which passes through the CDL (Center Distance Line) in between the gear axes. I have no clue how to proceed from there with actual involute teeth.
My idea is to at some point write an NX Open script/module, which takes in various parameters (like selecting the shaft/axes vectors; inputs ratio, pitch, etc.) and spits out something structured like my model.
Nice work! Great to see you’re having fun with the projects. As we get older we focus on being productive. Never lose the creativity!
You are on track ! at the age of 15 you building fantastic, just one word, "Keep Moving Sky is not the limit anymore"
Great project! Keep pushing, do not pay attention to anyone saying that AI will replace all software engineers.
Seriously impressive, you should be proud of yourself! As another (software) engineer your age, being able to be creative is always a thing to be happy about.
Don’t listen to people telling you not to post your age on the internet. This is solid work and you did this instead of being stuck in one of the hundreds of +1 dopamine traps in Roblox or yelling at other (often times much younger) kids in Fortnite like many of your peers did.
You did something meaningful, you even waited to share it with the world until version three, and you learned a ton doing it. Well done, dude!
you're an engineer by doing, whereas wannabes don't! very cool project
Beautiful work! But try to avoid to eating from the poisioned LLM tree too much.
Handwritten/calculated would a lot of value to the presentation of your work. Making spelling mistakes or messing up a formatting isn't a drama.
you're not a wannabe! you're an engineer! you made something awesome. wishing you the best :).
He's probably American. So he's not engineer.
He's V8motoreer under the hood, a guy from the hood.
You’ll certainly enjoy the “Not an Engineer” channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFJJkZm796I
What is it? Is this like a gear, where the output shaft turns at some fraction of the input shaft? Is better or worse than traditional toothed gears in some way?
They're pretty cool. They can be good in situations where you don't want any backlash and lots of torque. I believe they're very popular as actuators in robotics.
It acts like a gearbox, allowing you to sacrifice rotational speed for higher torque output. What makes this gearbox type special is their low backlash, multiple points of contact, and high efficiency.
try making something without AI too, it will be valuable
it is pretty cool, but posting your age + an (likely) AI project on hacker news is probably a bad idea.
Hey, you should join Hack Club! I was just at an event where a high schooler designed and built a continuous variable transmission (https://outpost.hackclub.com).
You’ll meet a ton of interesting, friendly teens who are all helping each other build awesome projects.
Cool project!
(Hack Club is a nonprofit and I’m the founder of it)
I was actually looking to join hackclub, how should I approach it?
As a teenager that spent some time somewhat around Hack Club things, I felt that being a part of Hack Club pressured me to live live faster than I was ready to (like 16 year olds doing summer internships / cohabiting with their partners). I want to say a lot of the people I knew online on Hack Club Slack went to places like MIT, so I guess there's that, but there is some beauty in taking life more slowly. I also didn't want to be boxed into running my school's club with what Hack Club provided. I think they do good things (eg. Hack Club Bank helps students run events before they can financially) and I interacted with a lot of really cool people. But if it is anything like the past, I wanted to share this.
Thanks!
I hope your username is not a spoiler for wind and truth. I’m about a third of the way through it.
You can just join their Slack workspace (it's a bit like Discord) on their website: https://slack.hackclub.com/ Then in the #announcements channel you'll see all the different projects they're running, just pick and choose the ones that interest you. I went to one of their meetups "Horizons Europa" last week and had a great time!
I built this because I wanted a better way to use multiple AI models during development...
I didn't even know what a cycloidal gearbox was! Good work—you've kicked off an exciting career.
You are a very talented 15 year old engineer. Not a wannabe. Just getting a head start on the imposter syndrome!
Welcome to the club
Nice work!
Don't post your age on the internet :)
Project looks cool
Brothers think alike ;)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17871313
It's crazy that in 2018 a cellular automata written in JS by a 12 year old was considered special (which it is) and today, nobody would even bat an eye because you can just vibe code this without effort.
It would still be impressive if it wasn't vibe coded.
Hold up, are you the type of person wanting to fire software teams because we can just ask the Product Owner to vibe code the new features?
No, I think the bar is just too high nowdays.
The projects I built as teenager spending weeks, it's just would take half hour of vibecoding now.
I'm going through this. It's demoralizing. I want to spend weeks coding something cool. The idea of asking an AI to do it in 30 minutes is like... what's even the point. I know I can, so why bother. I'd rather go get a beer.
It's like getting all the cheat codes and then the game isn't fun anymore.
> Hold up, are you the type of person wanting to fire software teams because we can just ask the Product Owner to vibe code the new features?
No, and I don't even know how you can even read this from my post.
This is a technical forum. One of the best traditions in engineering has always been taking beginners seriously and helping people who are trying to learn. Most of us are here because someone did the same for us. You come from a good place but I don't see why say a tech forum is a place you need to hide.
Those saying it's fine come from a good place. I come from a world where we see young people groomed, pursued and manipulated. There is no serious reason to posting your age as a minor on an adult forum.
Why not?