Module 04
Programming and automation for engineers
Enough programming to automate safely: the vocabulary, the decision about whether to automate at all, and why spreadsheets deserve their own lesson.
What this module covers
- Use the vocabulary — algorithm, input, output, variable, condition, loop, function, data structure — correctly
- Decide whether a task is worth automating, with a calculation rather than an instinct
- Choose between spreadsheet, visual script, text script, reusable library and application
- Explain why automating a bad process is worse than not automating it
- Audit a spreadsheet for the eight failure modes that recur
Lessons
Algorithm, variable, condition, loop, function, data structure — the six ideas an engineer needs, and what each one is for.
Start lesson →The calculation nobody does, and the reason automating a bad process makes it worse.
Start lesson →The eight ways a structural spreadsheet goes wrong, and an audit that finds them.
Start lesson →
Module checkpoint
Check what you have taken in
2 questions
Question 1
An office wants to automate a member-sizing check that currently omits one load combination. What should happen first?
Question 2
A tool takes 40 hours to build and verify, plus 8 hours a year of maintenance. It saves 3 hours per project across an office doing 20 projects a year. In which year does it move into cumulative profit? Give the year number, counting the build year as year 1.