Engineering

CL7 Ohm & CL5 drop73

A Brief Quip from Engineering Hello one and all! Engineering has undoubtedly undergone some of the most significant change during this past year which has left its mark on its members and hopefully on the Outpost as well. Engineering's most significant change perhaps could be said to have been the handover of leadership to a very different group of people. It was with heavy hearts that Engineering farewelled not one but two of its Executive staff; CL7 Eagle former Senior Manager and CL6 Quark former Assistant Manager. Both had in their time achieved remarkable progress and projects and left Engineering on its way up rather than the inverse. With marked encouragement from my predecessor and the remarkable confidence of the Executive Council I stepped up to the role of Senior Manager and found two superb Assistant Managers in CL6 Aeon and CL5 drop73 whom have already proven themselves invaluable. With this change of hands Engineering had also to change and with determination we managed to refocus Engineering's goals, redefine our mission and are slowly changing past perspectives held on us. So many new people have entered the fray to give a lending hand and I hope that we can all enjoy together what we have in store for the future. More specifically perhaps I should discuss what's been happening in Programming, a wonderful and dynamic group of Engineering which I lead. Programming traditionally is a group of individuals closeted away from each other all bent crookedly over computer monitors mumbling the Fibonacci sequence under their breaths. While that's a stereotype I'm loath to change I must profess that the Programming group has truly taken a life of its own and cross collaboration on projects is more prolific than it ever was! Having hired a range of people we've been able to concurrently process a number of projects (recently including: The new and improved Engineering Voting Booth, The Wizard Councils new Home Page, OZD's Amazing race, the 2007 Yearbook as well as secretly working on internal projects like the Engineering Console and our own new Home Page). It's been great to have such great contact with other departments like Communications, the Wizard Council, the One Zero Division and Internal Development; so much so that I feel compelled to thank everyone in entrusting the projects you did with Engineering. I've asked Aeon and Drop to both contribute to this report on Engineering, as a different perspective on things is oft a palatable dish. So enjoy and I hope to be seeing you at the Outpost soon! All the best, Ohm Senior Manager of Engineering Annual Report for Engineering and Research & Maintenance of Engineeringby drop73 Before I begin I would like to qualify what I report on with the fact that I was only on the Engineering Members E-mail list. There was a "beta" Engineering E-mail list but this was not being used for anything.I was a previous member of Engineering from May 2004 until August 2005, in which I resigned from Engineering because of real life issues.Then in March 2006 I returned to become active again, in which I was speedily received again. Not much was going on at all in Engineering at the time that I was aware of. Many of the Engineering members of old had resigned. About a year ago the chaos in real life was just beginning to settle down for me, yet all my available time was still going into real life. It was December 2006 when I began to see a window of opportunity to become quite active in the life of OTF, and so I acted. I contacted Eagle, then Senior Manager of Engineering, mid-December to see what projects were available. It seemed department activity was slow and I wanted to see what I could do to bring so-called life back into Engineering's halls. Being that it was a time for college exams and holidays, communication was difficult. After contacting CT about the available permissions for image use, I submitted an idea to Eagle with a Star Wars themed wallpaper project for the Media Downloads. In the month of February I updated the Media Downloads with fresh SW audio files. I also completed the first half of the SW Episode 1 wallpapers project in March. The second half came in April.As far as meetings go. The first real meeting in a long time came in February. This began a new phase in the life of Engineering. Things began to really pick up speed when other things occurred. First, Aeon was hired on as part of Engineering and became the Design Team Leader and started reconstruction of the Engineering Home Page. Second, when I was promoted to, first Assistant Team Leader of Research and Maintenance, and subsequently as Team Leader of the same, and also as Project Leader of Media Downloads, inheriting such positions from Quark. Then of course, the big leadership change occurred transferreing Senior Manager power from Eagle to Ohm. With all these changes it was hard to ignore Engineering anymore. Then something new happened. Engineering hosted the first Media Downloads Contest in which peeps could submit wallpaper entries.Soon, it seemed, other departments were beginning to notice activity and orders were being placed for work to be done. With all this work, the new Senior Manager, Ohm, and two new Assistant Managers, Aeon and Drop, needed to hire and keep hiring. That has gone well, but more hiring is definitely needed. The future of Engineering looks bright right now, with projects stacking up, but it will require more peeps to get involved. It has definitely been a year of forward change. Respectfully submitted, drop73 Assistant Manager II Research and Maintenance Team Leader Media Downloads Project Leader