A plain explanation of every day engineering . . . [with] enough detail to satisfy even a lot of detailed questions about infrastructure.” 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. 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. 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.

Engineering in Plain Sight is a beautifully illustrated field guide to the infrastructure around us. 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. An outstanding resource on a wide range of civil engineering subjects for all readers. Wonderful for browsing, reading, or researching.” This is a 'Bob the Builder' guide for young adults and older who are curious about common miracles of engineering. From asphalt to voltage regulators, they'll never look at the world the same."Support authors: If you like this and can afford it, consider buying the original, or supporting the authors directly.

Engineering in Plain Sight is a beautifully illustrated field guide with accessible explanations to nearly every part of the constructed world around us. 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. 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." 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. This is an awesome read that I would recommend to anyone with even a passing interest in the constructed world around them.An outstanding resource on a wide range of civil engineering subjects for all readers. Wonderful for browsing, reading, or researching." Written for anybody that just wants to learn about the world around them . . . I highly recommend it." A "file MD5" is a hash that gets computed from the file contents, and is reasonably unique based on that content. All shadow libraries that we have indexed on here primarily use MD5s to identify files.

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." 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. The book aims to explain (mostly in layman's terms) how numerous infrastructural objects around us work. And it accomplishes it brilliantly, in my opinion. It provides just enough details to explain most ideas and doesn't dive into intricacies to not get you bored. 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. 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."

Other parts such as roads, construction, and water felt more down to earth for me. The concepts were much easier to grasp, but I wasn't really excited about it. At other times, certain parts felt like a visual review of some of the videos that I have seen on Grady's YouTube channel. This book offers an overview of utilities (electricity, water, comms), transportation (rail, roads) and some of the most vital structures (bridges, dams, coastal infrastructure), supplementing the text with good illustrations. Author covers a broad range of topics, but doesn't go in-depth on them, making the book seem more geared towards younger readers. It appears rather superficial, but would probably be enough to get someone uninitiated interested in civil engineering. Written for anybody that just wants to learn about the world around them . . . I highly recommend it.” A plain explanation of every day engineering . . . [with] enough detail to satisfy even a lot of detailed questions about infrastructure."

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.”MD5 of a better version of this file (if applicable). Fill this in if there is another file that closely matches this file (same edition, same file extension if you can find one), which people should use instead of this file. If you know of a better version of this file outside of Anna’s Archive, then please upload it. 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.” So when I saw that he had a book… of course I was going to read it! And it’s pretty awesome. Topic by topic, he goes into a high level but with some detail on all sorts of ways that infrastructure actually works and neat things you can look out for.