Superhero careers: Ant-Man

Superhero careers: Ant-Man image credit © MARVEL

If you can turn a blind eye to the life of crime that Scott Lang once pursued, it is his career as an Electronic Engineer/ Electronic Technician (he is listed as doing both), you would think they are the same – but they are not! Therefore one can be super smart even though they are super tiny. Yes, we know – very corny!

Scott Lang is Ant-Man when he is trying to accomplish his superhero antics however when he is at work he is messing around with electronic gear and gizmo's.

The cool part of electronics is that, in this day and age, the industry is so broad that it finds itself applied across all other engineering environments, be it in electrical, chemical or mechanical systems. Electronics blurs the lines of engineering. Such is the world’s dependency on electronics that it even finds use in natural and organic systems.

So what exactly is the difference between an electronic engineer, electronic technician and electrical engineer?

Let’s look at the engineer versus the technician. The differences are identifiable at a tertiary level during an individual’s course of study. Tertiary institutions generally distinguish between these fields of study by the levels of practical and theoretical work that encompass the studies. A further differentiation may be found in the workplace depending on the environment and the job specification.

Conventionally speaking the engineer uses first principles to design and to solve problems, the technician is considered more hands-on, performing specific tasks and is generally focused on carrying out practical work.

Let’s break it down into the following:

Engineering, Operating and Maintenance

Simply put, we can consider the life cycle of products today to encompass designing, building, testing, operating and maintaining the product until it reaches its end of life point.

Conventionally speaking the activities to design, build, and test may fall within the scope of an engineer, whereas maintenance may be the task of the technician who should also know how the product operates in order to fix or service the product to ensure that it works as the design intended. This may differ from environment to environment.

A further differentiation is of course found in the electronic and electrical fields of study. Again, based on the environment, notwithstanding the theory and type of equipment involved, electronic engineering is focused predominantly on low voltage and low current applications. This “low voltage” threshold can depend on the environment – in a laboratory environment electronic engineers may work with 12V at most, whereas in an industrial environment this limit could be 230V. Everything above this threshold would then be in realm of the electrical engineer.

Superhero careers: Ant-Man image credit © MARVEL

To find out more about the Electronics and Electrical Engineers check out the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

Further check out their students and career pages for insight into careers, student funds and grants. You can also visit their foundation website for more funding opportunities.

What we found really cool and resourceful are their website projects called Tryengineering.org, TryComputing.org and IEEE Spark – all jam packed with ideas and information about careers and education within the industry.

Okay we really got sucked into the engineering stuff – let’s pull back to the superhero who can do a lot more than his sizable presence – or rather lack of size. Check out more about the abilities and the adventures of Ant-Man on Marvel.com and remember even superheroes have careers!

Many thanks to Marvel for Artwork and Information, visit Marvel.com for more awesome superhero adventures!