<p>So my two (maybe three) friends and I are going to make a product for some competition or something (don't yet know the specifics), but it's engineering-related and I don't know jack about engineering. I mean, two of the three friends and I are enrolled in an intro-engineering class, but we really don't know how to make a product that will sell. Honestly the guy who rounded up this group just picked the other two (potentially three) of us because we make good grades. So yeah. Where do we get started?</p>
<p>Your probably not going to succeed.</p>
<p>Yeah, you don’t have to tell me bro </p>
<p>I at least want to try. I’m not giving up w/o even trying</p>
<p>yeah bro seriously bro</p>
<p>but ask a teacher/some professional for help. try contacting professors of engineering at a local college</p>
<p>You can’t ask someone how to invent something, a good invention comes from an original ingenious idea.You could just think…I guess?</p>
<p>actually, you can ask someone who’s knowledgeable to help you. i didn’t try to invent something for the purposes of making money, but i got a professor to mentor me in cancer research. yeah it’s possible. like a lot of people do it, actually. the mentor doesn’t have to come up with the big idea, but he or she can certainly help plan and implement the plan</p>
<p>If you have to ask, you can’t do it.</p>
<p>well speaking from personal experience (and sounds like you have basically none), sometimes it’s necessary to have a mentor, or it at least vastly improves the project. at like intel isef, virtually everyone in the engineering categories (and all the categories, actually) had a mentor. and these were very successful students who were being judged by phd’s, etc. and lot of them got published.</p>
<p>see this is what I told the guy who came up with this genius plan…and he’s all like “no inventing’s easy”</p>
<p>Is it more like a research thing, like what Clementines is describing? A mentor may help, depending on what you’re working on, but you probably will need an idea beforehand. Mentors are extremely hard to find unless you have connections to the university, so start early!</p>
<p>I’ll do it for you if the price is right, I’m a 3rd year electrical engineering major.</p>
<p>I agree with the above posters, you may want to seek help. For example if you are designing a solar powered vehicle with nearly no knowledge of electrical engineering, physics, and aerodynamics, you’re pretty much screwed.</p>
<p>aight thx guys</p>
<p>Well, on the inventing part…look around at things in your daily life. Usually there are products that you use that are lacking in some respect. You find yourself saying "this would be a great product if it only…then fill in the blank (had a thingamajig on it, was stronger, more flexible, bigger, smaller, actually did what it was advertised to do). Then improve on it–your improvements lead to invention and engineering is part of it.
Or, you say–“I need a thingamajig to do this job but I can’t find one to buy.” So make one.
Or–discover the properties of a great material that you like playing around with but seems to have limited uses (or has only been marketed with limited use). So ask yourself–what else could I use this great material for?</p>
<p>Inventions do usually require engineering–the very word implies something that is made or created. But there are all kinds of engineering. Don’t get hung up on the word. I doubt anyone expects you to build an automobile. It’s already been done. The best products are useful and cheap to create and sell to boot.
Do some research. I personally love studying ergonomics (making products easier to use).</p>