SYSE 515 8.3 Hard Topics

 

I used to think that systems engineers played a supporting role in dealing with various types of engineering problems, but now I know that systems engineers have one of the most important roles coming up up with solutions and improvements.

Over the course of SYSE 515, I studied a wide range of fundamentals of probability, statistics, economics, and physics.

Through a number of projects, I learned firsthand how the fields are applied to real-life engineering problems.

The risk management section in particular helped me to understand what knowledge and perspectives are needed to solve engineering problems.

What I learned in probability included combinatorics, conditional probability and independence, distributions and random variables are part of the fundamental probability toolkit. Now I understand how to use this toolkit in matters for risk management and decision analysis as well as developing reliability block diagrams, fault tree analysis, critical path method, program evaluation and conducting review technique. Some problems that I solved using CPM with ES, EF, LS, LF, TF were quite useful and I feel  that I can directly apply the method to other engineering projects in the future. Several questions that required knowledge in economics helped me to widen my engineering perspective from just physical and chemical aspects of engineering to economics of engineering projects as well. The skills that I learned using excel program to not only solve problems but also analyze the data will also be key in real-life engineering environments.

Before I took the course, I used the words ‘why’ and ‘maybe’ vaguely without understanding how to approach questions that require a constructive process to assume and decide which hypothesis to be chosen. Now, I know how to start the problem solving process and acquire the necessary data to analyze it.

I also reviewed and recalled the physics of mechanics that I studied back in high school and college through the provided videos on physics.

With that, this week’s team project was to calculate how much propellant is needed to place a payload into a low-earth orbit with some necessary data provided including the weight and burn time of the rocket and it was important to understand how the formulas that are required to solve the problem were derived. Even though it seemed rather complicated, taking a systematic approach to break down the problem and developing the methods to reach a solution illustrated how to use technical knowledge in an applied systems engineering way.



References:


System Engineering Tools Database. (n.d.). INCOSE. Retrieved October 4, 2020, from https://www.incose.org/setdbtest/system-engineering-tools-database


Ideal Rocket Equation. (n.d.). NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION. Retrieved October 4, 2020, from https://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/rocket/rktpow.html

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