“To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk” 
                                                                                                                          -Thomas A Edison 

                                             No sense of satisfaction is greater than that which an engineer experiences after showing off his project to the faculty and getting a pat on the back. This drive has led to the creation of some extraordinary projects in the past few years. With the emergence of easy to access open source hardware and software, the world is an engineer’s oyster. The Arduino board and Linux have made a huge impact in the open source market and have made projects more affordable for students to make.

Projects are no longer just devices, which show principles and theories practically, but real world problem solving marvels that, believe it or not, are already being used by millions of people. To state abstractly, the importance of projects and how they have impacted the world is doing them injustice. So I’m going to put forward some examples that I think have changed the way we live our lives.

Most of the software we use today was designed by a group of friends who were extremely bored and inspired. The concept of Facebook was first developed in a Harvard dorm room and hasn’t stopped growing ever since. Hotmail is another example of how alcohol and engineers come together to create something amazing. Clocky, the friendly neighbourhood alarm clock was also designed as a college project.

Projects and inventions are the very basis of the engineering community. Everything that we use today was once a thought in someone’s head. It’s important that teachers understand the importance of projects as well. The short sighted narrow minded university mindset of today’s professors seriously hinders the creativity of today’s generation. Professors seem to be afraid of creative projects and advise the students against such projects. Well you know what they say; those who can, do; those who can’t teach.

As an engineer myself, I feel like our generation is nothing but a company of parrots, without the power of free will. Projects, I feel, are the one big opportunity that has been given to us to express our thoughts and creativity through a medium that we as engineers love and understand. Projects not only bring out creativity but also leadership and management skills. Respect for each and every component can only be learned by travelling to Lamington Road to buy something that costs less than a vada pav, but without which your project and hence, by extension your life would seem incomplete. Not to mention the ability to face the constant critique, doubt and judgement offered freely by the skeptics. Projects not only make better engineers, but also make better people.

I urge my fellow engineers to think out of the box. What’s the point in doing something that’s already been done? A project should be an extension of your thoughts and beliefs. No thought is better expressed than through its implementation. Projects are one of the best platforms for expressing our thoughts. The point of a project is not to satisfy your professor, but to satisfy yourself. The next big thing might just be that idea you’ve always had, but thought was too insignificant to implement.

So go out there and invent, after all it’s what you were engineered to do.