Preface

What This Book Is About

This book teaches engineering reasoning — the structured, disciplined, evidence-based way of approaching problems that is common to every engineering discipline, from aerospace to circuits to software to structures.

The spine of the book is a five-step workflow: Define → Model → Analyze → Interpret → Communicate. You will see this framework for the first time in Chapter 6. You will use it in every chapter and every project after that — when you build a spreadsheet model, write a MATLAB script, analyze a circuit, model a part in Fusion 360, present a solution to a non-technical audience, and evaluate an ethical dilemma. The workflow does not change. The domain does.

By the time you reach the Bridge Challenge in Chapter 15, you will have applied every tool in this book — unit conversion, structured problem solving, spreadsheet modeling, data visualization, MATLAB, circuit analysis, parametric CAD, engineering communication, and ethics — simultaneously, to a single physical problem made of plastic straws and tape. That is what integration means. That is what engineering does.

What You Will Build

Introduction to Engineering is not a lecture-only course. The projects are where the learning happens:

• You will build a parametric spreadsheet model of a cable car's velocity, using piecewise equations and conditional formatting, and write a technical memo explaining what you found.
• You will automate that same model in MATLAB and compare the two approaches in writing.
• You will simulate and analyze electrical circuits using a browser-based circuit simulator, validate Ohm's Law experimentally, and design a current-limiting resistor for an LED.
• You will model nine geometric solids in Fusion 360 — from a 10 mm cube to a sphere to a cube with a hole — verify each model's mass against a hand calculation, and produce an ASME engineering drawing.
• You will present a technical solution to a manufacturing quality problem to a non-technical management audience.
• You will analyze three real ethical scenarios using the NCEES Model Rules of Professional Conduct and produce written arguments for each.
• You will design and build a bridge from plastic straws, evaluate candidate geometries using a decision matrix, calculate your mass budget, and test your bridge to failure.

These projects are not additions to the course. They are the course. The chapters prepare you for them.

A Note on Who This Book Is Written For

Engineering students at community colleges look different from the national image of "an engineering student." Some of you are working 20 or more hours a week. Some of you are the first person in your family to attend college. Some of you are returning after time away. Many of you are not sure yet whether you belong here.

You do.

The technical skills in this book — unit conversion, structured calculation, spreadsheet modeling, programming, circuit analysis, CAD, communication, ethics — are learnable. They are not innate. The engineers who built the world you woke up in were first-year students who did not yet know these things. They learned them, one problem set and one project at a time.

So will you.

How to Use This Book

Each chapter is written to be read before the material is needed, not during or after. The chapters are short for a reason — they introduce concepts clearly and leave the deep practice to the projects and problem sets.

The Worked Examples show you what a complete solution looks like before you attempt the problems. The Watch Out callouts identify the errors that most commonly produce wrong answers without any warning. The Connection boxes tell you explicitly where each concept appears in the course projects, so you understand why you are learning something before you need it.

The Appendices at the back of the book are reference tools: standard symbols and units, conversion factors, a MATLAB quick reference, a spreadsheet quick reference, and a blank technical memo template.

If you are ever unsure what a term means, check the Glossary. Every key term is defined there with the chapter in which it is introduced.

A Note on Ethics

Engineering ethics appears throughout this book — not only in Chapter 14. The Challenger O-ring case is in Chapter 9, because misleading graphs are an engineering ethics problem. The safety factor discussion is in Chapter 7, because building with inadequate margin is an engineering ethics problem. The limitation statements in Chapter 13 are an engineering ethics practice, because omitting a known constraint from a report is misleading communication.

This is intentional. Engineering ethics is not a module at the end of a curriculum. It is the discipline of making technical decisions responsibly. It shows up every time you decide whether to check your answer, whether to disclose an assumption, whether to report what actually happened. The habits you build in this course are the same habits that govern professional practice.

Acknowledgments

I wrote this book because I believe engineering education should be accessible — not just financially, but intellectually. Every student who completes this course should leave with a clear, confident understanding of how engineers think and what engineers do. That is the standard I wrote to.

This book grew out of the ENGR 110 curriculum developed and refined at Antelope Valley College. I especially want to acknowledge Karl Major, whose work developing course curriculum, project structure, instructional materials, and classroom activities helped shape much of the foundation from which this textbook was built. Many of the themes in this book — engineering thinking, applied problem solving, modeling, design, communication, and hands-on project work — reflect curriculum developed through that shared instructional effort.

I also acknowledge the use of artificial intelligence tools during the development of this textbook. AI was used to help organize material, transform class notes and course resources into readable textbook prose, improve formatting consistency, draft captions and alt text, and revise HTML for publication in LibreTexts. These tools were used as drafting and production aids, not as independent sources of authority. The final organization, technical content, examples, instructional framing, and editorial decisions were reviewed, revised, and approved by the author.

Dr. Jonathan Compton
Antelope Valley College
2026