BMG 2019 Grammarian Issue 2

7 NAZEEHA MOOSAJEE - ONE OF EIGHT STUDENTS SELECTED TO DISPLAY HER WORK IN TOP DESIGNS – SYSTEMS ENGINEERING Why did you choose to study Systems Engineering? Systems Engineering was a subject in which I saw the creative freedom and versatility to create fun and interesting projects in their full diversity from music through to vision and medicine. All the emerging ideas that will shape our future like data science and artificial intelligence are enabled by the study of this subject. There is this also this massive movement of creative people who call themselves makers who are doing truly inspiring work, pushing the boundaries of what can be reasonably put together by novices culminating in electronics, computing and mechanical aspects and freely sharing their triumphs. I wanted to be part of that culture. There is no part of the future that will not be touched by systems type thinking and the skills learnt in Systems Engineering will likely become useful in every other field of study I might choose in the future. What skills did you learn from other subjects that prepared you for Systems Engineering? Prior to picking up Systems Engineering Unit 1 in Year 10, I took the subject Mechatronics in Year 9. Mechatronics provided me with a very insightful platform; allowing me to shape a scope of possibilities for projects I had the ability to develop and create within the limited time-frames available. The ‘systems engineering process’ - introduced in Mechatronics was an aspect of Systems Engineering folio management that constantly required clarification and fine tuning - thus the prior exposure was very helpful in allowing my final VCE folio to meet all the necessary criteria. I was ambitious with my Mechatronics folio projects but it gave me some context to pause and consider the size of the bite I could reasonably be able to chew. It is easy to come up with a grand idea and be outwitted by constraints of resources of materials, staff, time and own skill set. What did you enjoy most about Systems Engineering? I enjoyed the freedom present in the classroom space. The ability to engage in basic work in class building foundations while reaching for the stars researching ideas and work of other technologists and makers provided freedom of expression akin to an Arts subject. No two projects are the same in this class and each is challenging in trying to fulfil some requirement as elegantly as possible. The level of depth of substance in the projects was only limited by the ability of the student to assimilate the concepts into reality to achieve desired outcomes by mustering all available resources i.e. teachers, internet, magazines, books, friends etc. In addition to this, the collaborative classroom space allowed for entertaining conversation - and the partnership of students to help bring each other success in their chosen projects. What did you find challenging about Systems Engineering? The subject is very challenging as it often requires a dive deep into electronics, computing, software/code, mechanisms, enclosures, ergonomics etc. With the limited level of knowledge acquired through course work, there is nothing to prepare one for limitations of real world constraints such as the ability of a microcontroller to compute in real time to produce an artefact free of sound or influence of electromagnetic interference in the success of a final year systems project. Most of the things we take for granted in our lives like mobile phones are very complex entities that take teams of seasoned professionals to conceive, produce and sell for an affordable price. In a Systems Engineering project, you very quickly discover the knowledge and resource gaps in play andwhat requires you to manage these elements of complexity through careful and practical choices, sometimes needing to backtrack to some compromise as I needed to do myself in my projects. This can be very challenging if not supported by various support people the student has to have available on short call for guidance.