#Electric engine

[dragons-and-magic]

Hm. I'm bored. Can y'all show me your favorite IRL engines? Or you favorite ttte engine. I'm not picky. Feel free to tell me all about them! I wanna hear!

[carsthatnevermadeitetc]

Batmobile, 1989. The vehicle that was used in Tim Burton’s 1989 and 1992 films Batman and Batman Returns is for sale for $1.5 million. Designed by conceptual illustrator Julian Caldow, it was built by John Evans’ special effects team at Pinewood Studios in England. Though it appears to be jet-powered it is in fact driven by an electric motor that was capable of pushing the Batmobile to a top speed of 25-30 mph. It is currently unknown if the engine is operational though it does have a working flame thrower.

sales listing

[zponds]

Now here we have the iconic Pennsylvania Railroad GG1 electric locomotives. There are four of them in my roster of TTTE OC engines from the PRR: Glenn (brunswick green five-stripe #4927), Gracie (tuscan red five-stripe #4877), Garrison (brunswick green five-stripe #4919), and Gaby (tuscan red five-stripe #4913). And these images will be here for Grantgfan to use when the time comes.

[thekhaotickrab]

I made a ttte fic! based on these engines:

Ant and Bee are small mining engines that pull ore, coal, overburden, and, of course, the mines workers. other engines call them "hobbits" but they know it's all in good fun, and they don't really mean to be rude.

One Day, On The Great Laxey Mine Railway...

"Ant, Bee..." Their Controller Boomed "Yes?" The two asked. "I am buying a new locomotive. They shall arrive soon."

"Do you have any more information?" Bee Asked. "Yes. They Shall Be a Battery Electric Engine. They will be unveiled at Valley Gardens at 6pm." he said. and walked off. Soon, the two were off to work, pulling ore, coal, and overburden from the mines, and workers to the mines. while at the water tower, they talked. "What do you think the new engine's name will be?" Ant asked "maybe fly?" Bee thought "or cockroach?" said Ant. suddenly, they heard a bell

"They must be calling us to see the new engine." the two went to see the new engine. "Hello." the engine said "I am Wasp." "Hello, Wasp! I'm Ant!" "Bleh! you smell horrid!" Wasp said "How Rude!" said Bee "It's true, Ant. have you Been cleaned?" the electric engine asked, "well...only lightly, this is a mining railway." Bee said, "So it would be redundant." They Continued. "speaking of" said Ant. "you have to take these flatbeds." Wasp Bashed into the foolish flatbeds carrying some new thumpers. "OW!" the flatbeds yelled. "We'll pave that green square out...'' they said. "No problem!" Wasp said. Wasp drove recklessly, bashing the flatbeds. though soon, they stopped in the mine. "Alright. unload the thumPAAAAAAAAA-" Screamed Wasp "ON ON!" the flatbeds screamed, and SMASHED into the mine. "OH NO!" said Wasp, as the mine COLLAPSED! the workers were all out, but Wasp Wasnt. "Don't worry!" said Ant. And Them, With Bee, Tied Ropes To Wasp. and pulled "GRRRRRRRRRRRR" after lots of pulling, They Finally Brought Wasp, The Flatbeds, and thumpers out. "now you know not to Bump flatbeds, don't you?" said Bee "Yes, I do..." Wasp said. soon the thumpers were breaking down the rocks, so the engines and miners could get back to work.

[hamletthedane]

Still laughing at Brian May offhandedly writing the greatest understatement in the history of academia in his astrophysics doctoral dissertation:

Ah, yes - “various pressures.” Like being one of the greatest guitarists ever and playing/writing/singing for the most legendary rock band of all time.

Those various pressures.

[oldguydoesstuff]

Arcing current at a substation disconnect switch shutting off a 15,000 volt circuit.

[perikrone]

Lynn Conway passed away this weekend. She was an electrical engineer whose professional work was instrumental in enabling virtually all modern semiconductor devices. She was fired from IBM, and lost her family for transitioning, and later came out and became an outspoken transgender activist.

Rest Easy, Lynn, the world is less for your absence.

[etchif]

The stex antags are very funny to me

[o-hora-o]

Love this contrast between her looks and her passion

[inbabylontheywept]

Kevin vs. Quantum Mechanics

This is an autobiographical piece. Names have been changed for anonymity, but it's otherwise left be. ---

The class's first suspicion of Kevin was that he had, somehow, cheated his way up to this course. He just seemed perpetually confused, and strangely antagonistic of the professor. The weirdest example of this was when he asked what an ion was (in a third year EE class?), and was informed that it referred to any positively or negatively charged particle. It would have been strange enough to ask, but his reply of "Either? That doesn't sound right" sealed him in as a well known character in the class of 19 people.

The real tipping point in our perception of him during a lecture where the professor mentioned practical uses for a neutron beam, and Kevin asked if a beam could be made out of some other neutral material. When asked "Like what?", he replied "An atom with all of its electrons removed." When we pointed out that the protons would make that abomination extremely positively charged, he just replied with "So what if we removed those too?" and then was baffled when we informed him that would just be neutrons.

That's high school level chemistry. Not knowing it was so incredibly strange that I felt like something was off, so I asked him if he'd like to grab lunch. He accepted, we chatted, and I finally began to get a sense of his origin story.

See, Kevin wasn't a junior/senior electrical engineer like the rest of us. Kevin was, in fact, three notable things: A business major, a sophomore, and a hardcore Catholic. All three of those are essential to understanding his scenario.

What had begun all of this was actually a conflict with Kevin and his roommate. Kevin frequently had his fundamental belief in Absolute Good, Absolute Bad, and Absolute Anything pushed back on by his roommate, who was in STEM. Said roommate kept invoking quantum mechanics as his proof against Absolute Knowledge. Kevin was tired of having something that he didn't understand thrown at his convictions, so he decided to take a quantum course to settle things once and for all.

Despite not having any of the pre-reqs.

He'd actually tried to take quantum for physicists first, but the school's physics department wouldn't let him. It's actually pretty strictly regulated, because it is a mandatory class for physics majors. However, because quantum is not mandatory for electrical engineers, there aren't really any built in requirements for the class. It's just assumed that nobody would actually try to take it until their third year because doing so would the be the mental equivalent to slamming your nuts in the car door. Just, pure suffering for no good reason.

Apparently, the counselors had tried to talk him out of it, but if Kevin was one thing, it was stubborn. He'd actually had to sign some papers basically saying "I was warned that this is incredibly stupid, but I refused to listen" in order to take the class.

He was actually pretty nice, if currently unaware of how bad he'd just fucked up. I paid for the lunch, wished him the best, and reported back to the class discord. We'd all been curious about this guy's story, but now that I had the truth, I could share it with the world.

Feelings were mixed. Some people thought he was going to drop out any minute now. Others thought that he wouldn't, be also that convincing him to drop now, while he still could, was the only ethical thing. Others figured that a policy of non-interference was best: The counselors couldn't dissuade him, and if we tried to do the same, he'd probably just think it was STEM elitism trying to guard its little clubhouse. He'd figure out how hard things were, or he'd fail. Either way, it would help him learn more about the world.

We wound up taking the approach of non-interference. If nothing else, understanding his origins gave us more patience when he asked bizarre questions. He wasn't trying to waste our time, he was just trying to cram three years of pre-reqs into a one semester course. He did get a little bit combative sometimes, and we could tell that he was really wracking his brain to try and find some sort of contradiction or error that he could use to bring the whole thing down, but he never could.

First test came by, and he bombed it. Completely unprepared. He'd taken Calc I, but he didn't know how to do integrals yet (that was Calc II). Worse, he was far past the drop date. I imagine most people in his shoes would've stopped struggling. They'd realize they were fucked and just let themselves fail, at least salvaging their other classes grades in the process. Why waste resources on an unwinnable battle?

Kevin never asked questions like that. If he was stupid enough to try it, he was stupid enough to finish it. God bless him.

He invited me to lunch after the test and said that the class was more fascinating than he'd ever imagined, but he didn't know if he'd be able to pass it. He asked if I could help, and I said...maybe. I brought the request to the discord, and from the eight people there I got three volunteers who admired this dork's tenacity. He was in over his head, miles beneath the surface, but his fighting spirit was fucking glorious. If he was willing to go down swinging, we were willing to bust our asses trying to get him caught up.

Some of the stuff was just extra homework we gave to the guy. We told him he needed to learn integrals, stat. We sent him some copies of basic software that can be used to teach the basics of linear circuit equations, and he practiced that game like it was HALO. Just, hours sunk into it. Absolutely godlike.

He was still scrabbling for air at just the surface level of the class, but he'd gone from abysmal failure to lingering on the boundary between life and death. Other people in the class started to learn about Kevin's origin story, and our little circle of four volunteer tutors grew to six. Every day, he had someone trying to help him either catch up in some way, or finish that week's homework. He'd gone from being seen as a nuisance that wasted class time to the underdog mascot.

He was getting twelve hours of personal tutoring a week, on top of three hours of classes, on top of six hours of office hours, on top of the coursework. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that this kid was doing 40 hours a week just trying to pass this one single class.

Second test comes around and he gets a 60. He's ecstatic. We're ecstatic. Kid's too young to take out drinking so we just order a pizza and cheer like he just won gold at the Olympics.

After that second test, things hit another tipping point. With so much catch-up under his belt, he was able to focus a lot more on the actual material for the class. A borderline cinematic moment happened when I was trying to get ahead on the homework so that I could put more hours in on my senior project. Nobody else had finished it yet because it wasn't due for another week, so the specifics of the problem I was working on were still a mystery. I went to the professor's office hours and get some pointers, but he wasn't willing to give good hints when the HW wasn't due for another week or so. He said I still had time to think about it, which was true, but I wanted to be able to think about other things. Kevin had watched the whole conversation, waiting for his turn to ask the professor more simple questions, but when I left I got a text from him telling me to hop on zoom.

Kevin had finished it earlier, because Kevin started all of his homework the moment it was assigned. He needed to, in order to make sure that he could get it done on time. He'd finished it the day before, and was able to walk me through it.

From student, to teacher. I'm not exaggerating when I say that he probably saved me eight hours on that assignment. I could've kissed him.

A month or two later, we took the final. As soon as we were done, we six asked Kevin how he did. He was nervous, there was so much new material for him in this class that his retention hadn't been great. Us six were also a little stressed: We were going to pass the class, but the final was hard.

We waited for the results.

And waited. And waited.

Finally, the scores were posted as a table, curve included. From our class of 19 people, 4 withdrew within the deadline, 4 failed, 1 got a C, 8 got B's, and 2 got A's. We could see that the curve for a C was set at 59.2% overall.

We called Kevin. He was crying. End score, 59.2%. Teacher curved the C exactly to his score.

It was a week into winter break so we couldn't gather the forces around for a party like last time, but we were all losing our shit. Kevin was losing his shit. He couldn't believe how stupid he was to try this course, he couldn't believe that six people busted their ass just to make sure he didn't die, and he couldn't believe that the professor basically just passed him out of sheer effort alone.

He said it was the stupidest thing he'd ever done, and while I doubt that, it was outrageously stupid. And yet, I've never been so invested in a fellow student before. I'm prouder of Kevin's C than I am of my own B. I was walking on sunshine for weeks after that. In theory, my senior project was building a functioning washing machine, but in practice, in my heart, it was helping Kevin pass Intro to Quantum for Electrical Engineers.

(And as an epilogue: No, he did not renounce Catholicism and become an atheist like his roommate had hoped. He did walk out changed. I think that being that wrong about something, and realizing it, was a pivotal moment for him. It's hard to be dogmatic once you realize that a lifetime of being wrong feels exactly like a lifetime of being right, right up until the last two seconds of it.)

[elektrostantsiya]

Arabelle - GE steam turbine for nuclear power plants ☢️🏭⚡

😻/😻/😻/😻

[zponds]

The S Motor electric locomotives of the New York Central are very unique as they maybe small, but they had long successful careers, as these little guys entered service in the late 1900s and were retired until the early 1970s. And these of these locomotives are in my roster of TTTE OCs.

[deedra-posting]

... I mean, Adachi Rei is a real robot but I wanted to include her. Was also debating on Spamton's inclusion but fuck it he's a spambot he gets a pass

100% sure it's been made multiple times but I wanted to make my own version

[potatoodles]

a shooting star! 🌠

[tabooi]

Starlight Express, Bochum 1989