Help for Engineers

What kind of questions will I get?

It can be absolutely anything – moderators will take out clearly nonsensical, or gratuitously rude questions, but that leaves a big field! Some of the most common questions in I’m a Engineer are:-

  • Variations on, ‘What made you want to be a engineer?’ (this is the most popular question by far)
  • What will you do with the money if you win?
  • What car do you have?
  • Have you ever blown anything up?

Also, quite a lot about zombies and computer games.

DO NOT feel you need to be up all night on google to answer questions way out of your area. Although remember, you’ll know more than most of the students. Answer what you feel you can, but it’s fine to say you don’t know. You can suggest who they should ask, or how they could try to find out.

A cautionary tale. Once, two scientists (from our sister site; I’m a Scientist) ignored our advice to say ‘I don’t know‘, Googled the answer to one question, found the same spoof site, didn’t realise the information was nonsense and repeated it in their answers. I think they must have been rushing, because it was pretty obviously nonsense if you thought about it. I hope I don’t have to say this, but use your critical faculties if you’re going outside your area and want to avoid looking silly.

What do I do about problem questions, or ones I’m worried about?

There’s some examples below, with our advice, but if in doubt do ask, it’s what we’re here for!

‘Are you gay?’
This is quite a common question. Sometimes, doubtless, the student is just trying to be cheeky. But they could be a young person struggling with their sexuality and trying to start a conversation with a non-threatening adult about it. Because we’ve no way of knowing the difference, we will always approve this question, but of course, you don’t have to answer it, if you don’t want to.

We recommend you’re as honest as you feel comfortable with in your answer. And bear in mind that  whatever the motivation of the original questioner, there will certainly be gay teens who read your answer.

Questions about sex and relationships
If the question is relatively scientific, then answer as you would on any other topic – sex isn’t something to be ashamed of.

We won’t approve personal question which are inappropriately intrusive, but you may get things like, ‘Do you remember your first kiss?’, or, ‘Do you believe in love at first sight?’

It’s possible, but extremely unlikely, you’ll get more personal questions where students are asking for your advice about their own lives. If you do, answer in a friendly, reassuring way, but remember you are not a trained sex and relationships educator. It’s probably a good idea to refer them to accessible but reliable information (we recommend Bish’s website) and if appropriate, suggest they speak to a trusted adult or their doctor. But again, you don’t have to answer anything that makes you feel uncomfortable.

Bullying
It’s very rare, but we occasionally get questions about bullying. Refer students to accessible but reliable information (we recommend Bullying UK) and suggest they speak to a trusted adult, if appropriate. If there seems reason for concern we will alert the teacher.

What’s your moderation policy for questions?

All questions are moderated before they are sent to you, in order to strike a balance between making your lives easier as engineer participants and giving students the chance to ask real questions.

Moderators will take out:

  • Duplicate questions, but allow through similar questions which make slightly different points.
  • Rude or offensive questions, but allow challenging and irreverent, but friendly, questions.
  • Moderators will allow questions which may be unclear – you can start dialogues with students to clarify them.

Time commitment

During the event engineers typically spend about 2 hours a day participating, for the ten weekdays that the event is on. This will vary according to how busy your zone is and how much detail you go into with your answers. Last year some people spent a lot more (up to six hours a day), but that’s not compulsory!

Don’t worry if work is taking you abroad during the event, you can easily take part from there, as long as you have access to the internet and some free time. In fact several of our engineers have been permanently based outside the UK.

Live Chats

A few minutes before the chat booking you should go to the CHAT page in your zone, you should see 2 chat boxes (one for students and one for you) but if it isn’t, that means it hasn’t been opened. Try refreshing the page, or waiting a couple of minutes.

Live chats are text only, a bit like Facebook or Google chat. You don’t need any special software or anything, just your computer and access to the internet.

Schools will sometimes take a few minutes to turn up, as the teacher is briefing the students, handing out cards, etc. Occasionally the school will not show up at all. Usually this is an IT issue. We’ll try not to make you wait around, if it looks like a class are going to be a no show, we’ll let you get on.

Chats are are booked by the teacher, to coincide with their lesson, so the time is fixed, but we don’t expect all the engineers to make each one as we know you all have other commitments. We do explain this to teachers and students. As long as a couple of engineers attend each chat the students will get a lot out of it.

Although, be warned, students are most likely to vote for engineers they have chatted to. It’s our semi-scientific opinion that this is the biggest factor in determining who students vote for (based on student survey responses and ethnographic observation in classrooms). Maybe you think it’s the taking part and not the winning that counts, but you might change your mind when the first eviction is looming!

Do I need to do any IT checks?

No, not really. The site’s very simple. It uses HTML and some JavaScript. We may use Java to run the chat page, but no Flash and no plug ins.

It uses cookies.

It has been tested on all major browsers (even, shudder, IE8) and should be fine on machines running Windows, MacOS or Linux.

If you can access the site, edit your profile and answer questions then everything is working fine.

If you can, come to one of the drop in chat sessions to say hi, and just check that you can use the chatroom. We will email you the times of the drop in sessions. Rarely a corporate firewall or similar may block the chatroom. This is more common with school firewalls, and far less common since we got better chatroom technology. But best to find out in advance of the first chat booking!

How do I keep in contact/Get in touch?

We strongly recommend Twitter as a way to keep in touch with us, and with your fellow participants. In past events, there has been a lot of online camaraderie with giving each other tips, sharing fears and joking around. Many have found it a good way to interact with participants in different zones, and are still in touch over twitter. We tend to go under the I’m a Scientist twitter moniker, but will Tweet about I’m an Engineer too.

Twitter is actually a useful way to contact us directly. I’m saying this for our benefit, as much as for yours, as it means we hear of any issue immediately. On one occasion this was a lifesaver when we’d completely forgotten to open an I’m a Scientist chatroom. Thanks to our tweeting participants we opened only a minute or two late.

Do bear in mind though that Twitter is a public medium and students taking part in the event may see what you say, though we don’t advertise it anywhere obviously on the site for students.

Please get in touch if you’ve got any questions not covered here, or you need help with anything. You can do this on twitter, to @imascientist, by email on admin@imanengineer.org.uk, or on 01225 667922. We’re here to help!

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