UCSB engineering students may better understand the importance of concise technical communication after hearing a talk given by Charles Whetsel, chief engineer of the NASA Mars Exploration Program.
Whetsel presented his lecture, titled “High Bandwidth Engineering Communications,” to over 70 students in the Engineering II Pavilion on Thursday. Topics included how to get maximum use from charts and graphics, how to effectively merge text and diagrams, and how effective communication aids an engineering design project. The talk followed a brief awards ceremony in which engineering students were recognized for their outstanding writing projects.
Throughout the presentation, Whetsel used examples from his experience with the Mars Program to demonstrate his general points. On large projects, such as building a Mars Exploration Rover, there are many logistics involved with coordinating the necessarily large group of designers and analysts.
“It is no longer common that an engineering team will draw people from one particular area,” Whetsel said.
The two Mars Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, were built in pieces and tested in various locations across the country, Whetsel said. The airbags that cushion the rovers’ landings were made in Delaware, but tested in Ohio. The rovers themselves were mainly built at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., but some testing was done at the NASA Ames Research Center in the San Francisco Bay area.
Besides maintaining good communication between different sites, scientists and engineers must also maintain good communication over time, Whetsel said. Since the rovers have landed on Mars, there have been two main groups of scientists that take turns coordinating the research. “The two vehicles are on opposite sides of the planet,” Whetsel said. “They are solar powered, so when one rover is working and collecting data, the other is sleeping for the night.”
This timing arrangement places a constraint on the engineers who operate and receive data from the rovers. Whetsel said this occurs because the Mar’s day, called a sol, is 24 hours and 40 minutes and forces scientists to match their schedules to Mar’s sols. Each day, scientists on the project come to work 40 minutes later each day. Having all engineers and scientists on the project communicate with each other is a challenge, Whetsel said.
“This idea of being geographically and temporally separated makes communication important within the team,” Whetsel said.
Whetsel also talked about making charts and graphics as useful as possible. Ideally, a chart can have its format standardized so that once a group of engineers learn how to read it quickly, other charts can be drawn in a similar, recognizable way.
“The information in this graphic are used like a big visual calculator that engineers can refer back to,” Whetsel said.
One such graphic is called a “pork chop plot.” This plot combines information about the energy needed to transport a vehicle to another planet, the vehicle’s arrival velocity, the visibility of the vehicle from Earth and so forth. The plot got its name because the contours on the graph look like pork chops.
Whetsel said this type of plot is standard and can be read by any engineer working on space missions. Thus, it is important to maintain standards in engineering communication so the largest number of people can understand the data.
To close his talk, Whetsel said that scientists and engineers must separate their recommendations from the objective data.
“A lot of people tend to be less rigid about mixing in personal objective opinions with real data,” Whetsel said. “Everyone who looks at the same data ought to be able to say, ‘yes [[Yes, there is a crater there.’”
In projects where the collected data is sometimes subject to debate, opinions and interpretations may be hard to separate. Whetsel said the team must come to a consensus on what the actual facts are before forming opinions. When introducing recommendations, Whetsel said it is important that the team knows it is specifically an opinion and not a fact.
Freshman electrical engineering student Calvin Chiem said he enjoyed the talk.
“I thought it sounded interesting,” Cheim said. “I was under the impression that he was going to talk about writing and his background at NASA. I think he got the points covered.”
Computer engineering freshman Mike Boensel said he thought many students attended due to personal interest and not because they received class credit for attending.
“I think most people came to hear him,” Boensel said. “It was a little more in depth than I expected. I thought it was just going to be about writing. I thought he did a great job.”
Ed Bradley said he was invited to attend the lecture by his son and UCSB Writing Program Professor professor Doug Bradley. Bradley was involved with arranging Whetsel to speak at UCSB.
“I’ve trained as an engineer, specifically a ceramics engineer,” Bradley said. “I think the most interesting thing to me is the amount of organization and data needed for this project.”