Engineering in Plain Sight: An Illustrated Field Guide to the Constructed Environment

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Grady is the perfect person to explain engineering to us: he's smart enough to understand exactly how everything in the human-made world works, and he's a brilliant storyteller who can translate that knowledge into engaging tales that even the technically-challenged among us can dig into. His book [ Engineering in Plain Sight] is the perfect extension of this unique skill set. By taking a concept usually applied to the natural world - a field guide! - and applying it to the, um, non-natural one, he's helped me understand for the first time basic but important things ... like how a cell tower actually works." Engineering in Plain Sight is a beautifully illustrated field guide to the infrastructure around us.

Overall I liked this book. Being a fan of this type of stuff (and Grady's YouTube channel) I was familiar with a lot of what the booked covered, but still found interesting tidbits throughout. Highly readable and illustrated with plenty of diagrams, making the material accessible to non-engineers . . . it would serve very well as a reference book for classrooms and the school library.” It was still pretty useful now, when I have no little one asking me questions, except for my own 4-year old self that is still inside my head wondering, occasionally, what all this stuff is. The great thing about a young one asking you questions, of course, is that it helps you to remember to look around and think about these things again, and now that there are more books available than ever, you can more often than not find out the answer.A wonderful explanation of all sorts of engineering practices. Author Grady Hillhouse is quite thorough as he give clear explanations to everything that engineers must design and deal with. Mr. Hillhouse tries to keep his explanation simple, but sometimes a lot of words and concepts were used that I couldn't grasp unless I took the time to research them outside of this book. I never really understood electronics when I was in my high school physics class. When the first section of this book was about electricity, it was a bit demoralizing for me after I got through a couple of topics. I powered through this part of the book, but many times I was left thinking, "Okay, power lines use three lines because it works best with some property of electricity that I don't comprehend." Grady is the perfect person to explain engineering to us . . . he’s a brilliant storyteller who can translate that knowledge into engaging tales that even the technically-challenged among us can dig into. His book [ Engineering in Plain Sight] is the perfect extension of this unique skill set. By taking a concept usually applied to the natural world – a field guide! – and applying it to the, um, non-natural one, he’s helped me understand for the first time basic but important things … like how a cell tower actually works.” A wind turbine is most efficient when the tips of the blades are moving about 4 to 7 times the speed of the wind. The blades have variable pitch to make it so. p. 11.

A plain explanation of every day engineering . . . [with] enough detail to satisfy even a lot of detailed questions about infrastructure." I like this one, but also felt that I would love it way more if I read it my teens. The book is pretty good at covering the basics of civil engineering, but it stops right there - at the basics. (at each chapter it felt that the same topics are covered way more detailed on the youtube channel) I kinda wished there were links or references to the resources if I would want a deeper dive. With colorful, and mostly clear illustrations showing lots and lots of details about the way things -- dams, roadways, wind turbines, etc. -- are designed to work, this book supplied me with a large dollop of information about public engineering. It's a really nice effort. Engineering in Plain Sight extends the field guide genre from natural phenomena to human-made structures, making them approachable and understandable to non-engineers. It transforms readers’ perspectives of the built environment, converting the act of looking at infrastructure from a mundane inevitability into an everyday diversion and joy. To read this ebook on a mobile device (phone or tablet) you'll need to install one of these free apps:

Engineering in Plain Sight is a beautifully illustrated field guide with accessible explanations to nearly every part of the constructed world around us. Excellent illustrations, great structure, and a fun diversity of topics! I learned a lot! Unfortunately for most audiences, an even better resource already exists on these subjects--the author's YouTube catalogue, which is consistently high quality! I would recommend his videos over the book for several reasons, like getting to see demos in action or getting more real-life case studies of engineering projects. Most chapters of the book feel like they are adapted directly from his videos.