Ethics

This weeks blogs is about Engineering ethics and how ethics apply to engineers in there every day life. So, ethics is a pretty hard subject to talk about because it really depends on the engineer and what they think is right and wrong and how they react to certain situations in which ethics is questioned. In class we looked over the different types of scenarios that engineers may come across and how ethics apply to engineers. There is the costume ethics, manufacture ethics, etc. Ethics encompasses many different subjects and how it effects engineers.
I guess the best way to approach this is to provide an example in which an engineer might be faced with and to tell how ethics applies.

So, say you are an engineer and you are working on a project for a company. The project you are working on is building a new facility for the company that hired your company to build it for them. You have scouted out various locations and the costumer and your company have agreed on one location. You are all set to build this new facility, the contract is signed and both sides are happy that this will be a successful venture. However, as you get ready to build, environmental engineers on your team come to you a tell you that the soil in which the company wants to build this new facility is unstable and could possible cause further problems for the costumer. The engineers do not know if indeed the building was built, if the unstable soil could cause problems, since they believe, that if they build a sturdy enough facility, the soil will not factor into problems for this new facility. However, you are unsure of this assessment. What should you do?

Should you tell the costumer about this soil defect and that it might cause problems for the costumer in the future, or should you keep quiet, since there is an uncertainty of the soil even making an impact on the facility. If you should tell them, there is a possibility that you will lose this consumer and the income that your company desperately needs to keep in business. What should you do?
This is an example of engineering ethics between the consumer and yourself. The ethics of it, is whether or not you should tell your costumer of problems that could impact them after the transaction between you is done. In this case it is a point about the soil and this causing future problems for the building (sink holes, mud slides, etc). At this point what you need to ask yourself is what is right and wrong. This is a difficult situation because if you do tell them and you lose this contract, you could lose your job, since the company needs the money that this contract will provide to keep afloat. If you don't you could end up with a guilty conscience if the soil in fact causes problems for the costumer. These are hard questions and ones that an engineer must ask, it is engineering ethics.

Another way you can approach this is if you don't tell, them and something happens, could you get sued and if you get sued is there a possibility that you can lose. This is a very harsh view, but it does get to the bottom of ethics. What is right and what is wrong. If you do get sued and lose, does this mean that your ethics are in question because you did not tell your costumer? It is a hard question to answer because ethics varies from person to person. It all depends on you and what you believe is right and wrong, and also if it is illegal or not.

moving sidewalk

Systems

The image below is the drawing I did of the Ifoundry system. I don't know much about all the other components of Ifoundry besides iefx. In the system I connected ifoundry with iefx which has two components, class and iteams. For class, which is ENG 198, this system split into two different components, lecture and labs. In lectures we learn about Goldberg's missing basics. In lab we do two projects. I noticed that we often give feedback and bring up topics from lectures into labs and vise verse. Lectures and labs, also help in our iteams. What we learn in class helps in what we do in our iteams. Feedback from lecture and labs help in developing what we want to accomplish in our iteams. There is also feedback from class that goes to ifoundry in order to make ifoundry better. This might have unintended consequences because what our class might think is bad/good, other students in the future might disagree with us. I also connected ifoundry with icommunity. Icommunity is what iefx goes to every Thursday in order to become more connected to the community. Icommunity gives visitor speakers that speak about various topics. I then connected the visitor speakers to building networks. Building networks is what connects most of the aspects of the ifoundry system. iteams help in building networks, conferences that ifoundry does help in building networks, and the visitor speakers at icommunity help in building network. This was a surprising revelation to me because I never thought of all the connections I was making while being in iefx. This is a good unintended consequence in that everything that happens in Ifoundry somehow connects to building networks or connections. Every action that happens in the iteams relates to how we view the class, for example if we have a great insight into a project we are doing and this insight is further helped in what we are learning in class, we might start paying more attention to what we are learning in class and view class in a new light. A light in which the class helps in the various projects we want to contribute. The system of ifoundry is complex, with conferences, iefx, icommunity, and other various connections and events connected to the system that is ifoundry. Ifoundry is a system in which everything feedbacks onto each other. Class in iefx feedback into iteams, conferences, icommunity, and to ifoundry again with the feedback forms of how to improve the class. Every aspect in the system of ifoundry helps in building connections, networks, and learning more about ourselves through the iteams, class, icommunity, and other events. Ifoundry feedbacks on itself and ultimately outputs good actions in the community that is iefx.