I’ve been curious how many working researchers we’ve got in this community, and what you all do!
If you’re working in science (physical or social), engineering, etc in a research capacity, give a shout in the comments and let us know what you work on! Same goes for students and amateur scientists at any level. (And by amateur I mean those of you who are working on your own experiments but just not being paid for it / not working on a degree; I’m upset that “amateur” has a negative connotation, it shouldn’t.)
I’m currently a PhD candidate, working on transmission electron microscopy and electronic materials (mainly ferroelectrics). In the past I’ve been involved in research / product development in a few different industries, including medical devices, aerogels, and materials for RF devices.
Software engineer working with a company that does materiel handling AGV systems (basically fleets of robot forklifts). Not much in the way of cutting-edge, though I do spend a lot of time thinking about the ethical implications of automation these days.
One of my friends who’s in robotics actually was working on a project in materiel handling. I think his project was to work on a robot that was suspended overhead in a box truck (for example) that could get to the back of the truck and pick up packages and bring them to the front where they could be unloaded without shuffling everything around. Not sure if that’s anything like what you do, but as someone with very little background in mechanical design his descriptions of the challenges he was trying to work through were really interesting!
Yeah it’s definitely something that I think is on a lot of people’s minds recently, although it sounds like you’ve got an especially direct line of sight on the topic!