Week 0: An Introduction to My Project

Hello Everyone, I am Om Patil and this is my first blog post. I will be studying the construction behind several forts in the United States and how the building design gave soldiers an advantage against their respective foreign threats. 

Military engineering is something that has fascinated me for years. I love how engineering and construction can be used to display the military’s tactics and give them an advantage in war. As a newly recruited army reservist studying computer networking, an engineering-related job, I am exploring my passion more directly. I’ve taken the initiative to expand my knowledge not just on engineering, but how the army uses this information. Exploring the construction and design of these bases will give me more insight into a topic that has always interested me. 

This project aims to show the mechanisms and construction behind these military bases and their advantages in war. Military forts provided protection, defense, and shelter for soldiers. This protection would not have been possible without good engineering. From the design of cannons and impenetrable walls to even just the decision of the location of the base, the safety of these soldiers stemmed from engineering. The military is well known for their soldiers fighting on the battlefield with guns and there is not much recognition for the engineering of these forts. This project will shed some light on the people in the background who constructed these forts for soldiers to fall back to.

As it stands, the general public views the armed forces as a job where you go to war and defend your country. However, most of the possible jobs the army or any other armed forces has to offer are background jobs like engineering and doctors – jobs that don’t directly involve defending the country from foreign attacks. Additionally, I will be aiming to do structured interviews with at least one of the engineers responsible for each of the forts. 

I’m looking forward to doing more research as well as building the models of these bases.