• Question: With the improvement of motor vehicles is the joining of mechanical engineering and programming a vital part of future cars?

    Asked by landrosa to Ed, Keith, Tish, Nicola, Rachel on 11 Mar 2013.
    • Photo: Nicola Lazenby

      Nicola Lazenby answered on 11 Mar 2013:

      Mechanical engineering is A LOT more than just motor vehicles! Motor vehicles are developing very quickly, you have things like the electric car and all the infrastructure behind those! I’m not up on all areas of mechanical engineering, but my friend who does mechanical engineering is looking at making wind turbines more efficient and using them in developing countries whilst another friend is looking at how to make buildings heating systems more sustainable!

    • Photo: Edward Taylor

      Edward Taylor answered on 12 Mar 2013:

      Nicola is absolutely right, Mechanical engineering as a degree even includes some programming. I did a few mechanical engineering courses and they were all about programming robots to move using a coding language called C++.

      You are also absolutely right though, onboard computers in cars will become increasingly sophisticated and require more and more programming, and even today we are seeing huge leaps in the integration of computation and car. Some cars now driving on the road can park themselves, and loads in development can even drive themselves around towns by scanning their surroundings! Programming and computers will soon be in everything, from your fridge telling you that you need to buy more milk, to your house noticing that you are a bit cold and automatically increasing the temperature!

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