"I'm gonna have to science the sh*t out of this"

    That title line is essentially the entire plot of the nerdgasm of a film The Martian from 2015 featuring Matt Damon. It's a wonderful thriller about how astronaut Mark Watney gets stranded on Mars and must use his ingenuity and charming personality against some ugly odds. Yet most of what Watney does in the film/book is problem solving and engineering, so really the correct phrase should be to "engineer the sh*t out of this." Science is more about observing the world rather then solving problems. But I can see that using the word "engineer" doesn't quite have the same ring or power as verbifying the word "science." So perhaps it was a good decision to use that line; it got some nice reviews (e.g., Neil deGrasse Tyson).

I'm gonna have to engineer the sh*t out of this.

Hypothesis confirmed: definitely not as catchy. 

    Despite not sounding as cool as verbing science, engineering is used to generate solutions that can vastly impact our lives and our planet, which I think is pretty cool. But how exactly does one engineer? The process is pretty straightforward when you get down to it. 

1. Identify and define a problem. The better defined your problem is, the better off you are. Usually this part comes with specifying requirements that must be satisfied. Be aware that the more requirements you add, the more constrained your design space becomes.
2. Brainstorm concepts and solutions. Get out a whiteboard or piece of paper and start drawing up far-fetched ideas. This part is way more fun in a group and should be done with an open-mind. 
3. Develop and prototype. Dedication plays a crucial role here. Things can get slow, but keeping your eyes on the grand vision can be a great source of motivation. 
4. Iterate and iterate. Things hardly ever work on the first go around, but that's how you know you're making progress. Obviously you can't iterate forever, so this is dependent on your available resources.
5. Meet requirements. If you make it here, congratulations! This is where you can start to reap the rewards of all your hard work. Relish that feeling building successfully something. 

That's a very general and abstract explanation of how things go down. So in future the weeks we'll be posting about how to engineer something very specific: the Dive Buddy Drone. We'll post about how each one of the steps mentioned above will be applied to the DB Drone, and go into depth on the technical aspects that are needed to complete this product. Hopefully it'll give you a good picture how engineering is actually done in the world, (in contrast to how it's portrayed through movies like The Martian). Let's engineer the sh*t out of this.