bcsinnovations

What makes a good design engineer?

A slightly nerdy outlook on life. I was given some tools for Christmas when I was young. People thought this was an odd present for a kid who was eight years old and that I wouldn't like it. Then I got to pull my brother's toys to pieces when he wasn't looking. I had heaps of fun.

How have you kept up with changing technology?

We always have different projects coming in; This combined with researching on the internet for the right part for the job keeps you involved with what's out there.

What's your favourite tool?

I still do most of my own soldering for prototypes, it's important when designing hardware to not design something that's impossible to rework. As far as reworking is concerned - my favourite tool is the microscope.. bits keep getting smaller and my eyesight isn't getting better!

What advice you would give to the emerging Gen Y engineers?

I guess a turning point for me was when I realised that I didn't need to know everything to be good at what I do. You will never know everything.

How long have you been with BCS?

I started working with David in January 1996 as part of my industrial placement for uni. After that I started working around 3 days a week.

What was the BCS like when you first started?

When I first started, BCS was just David. The office was located in North Epping, in a quiet little shed in Dave's backyard. The shed was about twice as big as my current office and had everything that was BCS in it. Dave's kids were still really little and in the evening I would sometimes have to wait until they were out of the bath before I could use the toilet!

What projects did you work on when you first started?

One of the projects was a variable power-supply for Polartechnics. We made the circuit boards ourselves and I was writing the code for the microcontroller and refining the schematic. Not bad for one of the first things I worked on after university. It did blow up in my face more than once though.

Another was the VIR1 Joystick. It was a motion sensitive joystick for the PC. It was great for flight games, pity we didn't get to do more "testing" for that project.

How long were you in the shed?

I think we were in the shed for 2 years or so. There was no air-conditioning, so that made things really hot with the tin roof in summer! Dave put a sprinkler on the roof for a while before splurging on air-conditioning the shed.

Where did you go after the shed?

BCS moved into the Sirius road office in 2000. It was shortly before we got the pool table!

What was the most interesting project that you worked on?

Wow, there's been a heap of interesting things.

I've done PDA applications, spent months writing applications for testing data integrity and throughput on USB devices, designed systems from the high level design down to the low level embedded firmware and PC applications.

What is the most amusing thing that has happened in your time at BCS?

We used to have design meetings with a client at a local Thai restaurant. They would bring heaps of booze along and after lunch we would start discussing the design.

After one such session we sketched large amounts of the design on the paper that went over the table cloth. Any spilled food on the design had to be initialed as an engineering change note. I guess you had to be there...

Some career highlights?

One of the highlights was flying up to Brisbane and working with the guys from Snow Sports Interactive. It was a heap of fun and I was doing bits of coding and design. The product I was working on later won an Australian Design Award. It was nice to hear that they had a bunch of people come in and try to help, but they didn't have many that produced code like I did, BCS is full of bright people, and when you're only compared with that level you don't know that you're doing anything special.

What do you like doing the most?

One with the lot please! I think if I did any one thing for too long I would go nuts.

At BCS I get to write firmware, software, design hardware, debugging systems etc. My favourite is to have a prototype device running firmware I've written, talking to a PC running software I've written, and debugging/developing as I go. That, and handing documentation to a documentation specialist within BCS !