What exactly I do...

Due to popular demand I thought I'd give you all some information on what exactly I do here.

Firstly, a little background information on the organisation, Engineering Ministries International (eMi) that I'm working for. eMi provides free architectural and engineering services to Christian ministries around the world. Generally this is orphanages, hospitals and schools. I'll be posting soon on a feeding centre and school in Guatemala I've been working on. They are 6 offices around the world; Costa Rica, India, Uganda, US, Canada and UK.

The way the projects (school, orphanage etc) work is that after the project is accepted, a group of architects, surveyors and engineers head to the site of the project. They are a group made up of permanent eMi staff and interns (people like me) from an eMi office and a bunch of volunteers who come from places like the US or Canada just for the week (or up to 10 day) long trip. During the "project trip" week, the site is surveyed, missionaries who were working for are conferred with about what they actually want, soil is tested, the avaliability of utilities is accessed and plans started. Then we all head back to the office or our homes and keep on working on the project. While we are still working long distances with volunteers in other countries it is very difficult. We have to polish or change the architectural plans. Most of the structural engineering design needs to be done when we get back. In simple terms this involves making sure the columns and beams are big enough to hold everything up. The water engineers need to decide where the water will come from and where all the waste water will go. The electrical need to look after power supplies and wiring. At the end of the project, reports have to be written up, detailing why we chose to do what we did. And providing all the plans and details of how everything is to be done.

While all the design is happening, everything needs to be drawn up on a drafting program called AutoCAD. Things are constantly needing to be changed and corrected. This is where red lines come in. The plans and details are printed off, and someone checks over them and marks all the problems with a red pen. Then someone else fixes all the mistakes and highlights them as they go. Then they print off a new copy, ready for more redlines. This process continues until everything is perfect. At first, I did quite a few redlines for other people. Then about 6 weeks ago, I got to redline for someone else- oh the power of a red pen! It felt great.

For those of you thinking I'm just drafting, don't fear. I do some design work too, looking at the beam design and the number of bars in them. Sometimes my boss Dan calls me and James, the other structural guy over and gives us a bit of an engineering lesson, showing how he designed where the reinforcement went in the column for example. I've also calculated loads and looked at loading factors set out in "The Code". Loading factors are what Engineers apply as somewhat of a safe guard, like if the steel is not as strong as you expected, or you get more people and furniture in the building than expected. The Code gives details of what loading codes to use in what circumstances. It's basically a big rule book. I also got to look at seismic loading, which was really fun. I even designed an excel program so calculating won't be so involved next time.

So there you go, my daily working life.