Training day: moments that made us into engineers

“Tang!” The box hit the ground, weighty as a short put ball on the palm of a frail hand. Unsettled by the fall, its elements followed into an immediate tussle.

From the short lived turmoil emerged a signature call; a mechanic’s call to work. It’s the one custom all mechanics observe.

No serious work is begun before the ritualistic thud of the toolbox and tussle of tools. It’s therapeutic, relieving to the heart of a distraught car owner. It signifies a beginning to the end of their troubles.

Now the hands-on crew dived right into the box, ruffling tools to find the right sizes.

Written on their eyes was the excitement of a five year old, on their fours, sampling through gift boxes under a Christmas tree. But their faces resembled that of Sir Isaac Newton forging the equations of Calculus – serious to the core.

The box opened like a labyrinth of sorts; drawer sliding on top of another, each with a unique assortment of tools. Everything looked orderly so far, just before the chaos of dismembered parts unfolded.

The sound of fulfillment

Action time! Hands got busy turning Allen keys and spanners, loosening tight nuts and bolts. All along, this is what they had been itching for; something to tear apart and build back, a design to make or remake.

While at it, the sound of tools being worked, repeatedly gonging onto the demo engine was unlike others. It charmed our ears better than the sound of a theme song preceeding a popular TV show.

Think of “Chuck Norris” or “George of the Jungle”. This was much better. To our ears, it was the sound of fulfillment.

An engineer’s brains and hands are wired to bring to real life the fictional world of theories; to transform thoughts into objects.

Thus it goes without saying how fulfilling it can be to work something by the hand. On the flip side, it is equally unsettling to dwell on math and theories in lecture halls.

Every once in a while, the hand has to be put to work, and till this moment, our hands had never been honored so much as to be allowed to wreck apart an engine, assess its wear and put it back together by ourselves.

We felt honored, and in return, we gave our best effort. With a jolt of excitement, we worked that engine and got results for its overhaul quite effortlessly.

This was day one of week three of our internal attachment. The task of the day, engine overhaul was just a tip of the iceberg. Over two months, each day came with a task of its own kind.

The workhorse first

Foremost, we had to work our hands on the farm workhorse. After all, what good is an engineer without intimate knowhow of their most functional machinery? The tractor, for an agricultural engineer is an enabler; a means to many ends.

But more than a mere workhorse, this traction monster has earned itself a name in the profession. It’s the emblem of an agricultural engineer.

In fact, if anything, every such engineer should own one, and drive it around as often as doctors wear a stethescope around their necks. Perhaps it would earn the profession greater respect.

Of the many days of attachment, the tractor days were a definite highlight. Getting behind the monster’s wheel and feeling the power of its huge wheels treading on the ground crowned all the tutorial hours on the tractor.

In part, this was a pleasant time for being a shared experience. We took turns at driving, watched, cheered and jeered at every one that took to the wheel. It’s the equivalent of watching film in a sourround sound cinema hall filled with people, as opposed to watching alone.

Common grounds

Much better than the fun, the attachment brought out the dynamics of working together. It unearthed relentless talkers, muted introverts and those in between. The muted ones learnt to cope with incessant talk and jokes, while the talkers got more loquacious.

We found common grounds and abilities. Like the circles of a Venn diagram, our social circles intertwined along sections of commonality.

All in all, this was an experience of its kind. It felt like an induction into the profession, being the first time  we had some exposure to the practical side of an engineering course.

There couldn’t have been a better time than this; just after clocking two years in campus.

End of former years

By this time, you have established some foothold in engineering knowledge. At the very least, you can play around with differentials and integrals of different functions.

You have also developed an intellectual respect for names like L’Hopitals, De Moivres, Taylor, McLaurin, Langrange, Fourier and Stoke.

Even more certainly, you have heard of the plight of renown scholars, who paid a hefty price to bring you this knowledge.

For one, Sir Isaac Newton was a life-long celibate. How he subjugated normal human appeals, if he had any at all, remains a mystery to this modern age.

The moment you discover this truth, you begin to appreciate the cost of passionate intellectualism. But it also ignites a fiery rage, especially after you’ve helplessly battled with a Calculus CAT.

Then, it only seems fair to assume that Newton was out to punish anyone who would take academia so lightly as not to detain their human inpulses for its sake.

The point is: the second year probably marks the end of the former years in engineering school, where you guzzle on foundational math and theories. Moving on, it gets realer.

So it’s only appropriate that you get a taste of the real-life side of engineering. To say the least, you have earned it by coming this far.

The first attachment molds you into a different person. You never see engineering like a pristine student anymore.

Looking back now, those were the days that turned us into engineers.

This is a tribute to the Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering class of 2022, JKUAT. To greater heights!

Cover Photo: Kennedy Muthamia at the automotive workshop during the internal attachment