I am a pretty good engineer. The reason I know this is I have known a lot of crummy ones in my 47 years as an engineer. The design process I used to use was I would come up with a concept and do some sketches. I would take those sketches to Darwin, my general manager. Darwin is smart, a great machinist with a Degree in Chemistry. I would then clean up the sketches and Darwin would build a prototype. We would test it, and redesign it to fix any problems we had. I would then repeat the process several times until we got it right.

A good mechanical engineer has to be able to see a design in motion in 3D. I am good at this but my son is even better. Now, I go to my son with an idea and no sketches. Depending on the complexity of the project, we will talk for a few minutes or a few hours. He will visualize what I am describing and can see the problems. We go back and forth until we have something we are both happy with. Once we are done talking, I will make drawings and he will build it. It usually only requires a few tweaks. We are working on a major design now but I can’t tell you what it is only that I am having a lot of fun.