Forbidden Things

A list of tools, materials, behaviors and methodologies not used in the EDS.

Forbidden Things

The list below has evolved over many years of working with undergraduate students on course projects, research, and competitions. The EDS encourages ways of working that should not require any of these things.

1. Building prototypes for class projects. The EDS is specifically set up to help students work on non-course-related projects. The professor teaching your class should provide tools, materials, and space to complete your project without requiring resources from the EDS. Feel free to write code, simulate, or test software in the EDS. Please don't work on random rats' nests of labs or projects into the EDS.
2. Duct Tape / Duck Tape. If you've truly designed a system that requires Duct Tape, congratulations you're well on your way to becoming an HVAC system installer, but that's not something the EDS can help you with. If, on the other hand, you've made such horrible mis-calculations and errors in kludging together a last minute prototype and just need duct tape to hold it all together, we also cannot help you. As a rule, the EDS does not engage with students in those chaotic phases of projects, as it tarnishes our reputation. Duct tape is for emergency repairs only and is not an engineering material. Design your systems better, and you'll never need duct tape.
3. Hot Glue. If you've truly designed a system to require hot glue, I don't believe you. Hot glue is the last resort of those absolutely desperate to just hold something together for five minutes to show in class. The EDS does not have hot glue and will not help you find hot glue. Do not bring hot glue into the EDS. Hot glue is for arts and crafts and is not an engineering material. Design your systems better, and you'll never need hot glue.
4. Nails. If you've truly designed a system that requires nails, congratulations – you're doing wood-working or carpentry, and I hope you're enjoying those hobbies. The EDS has no tools or materials to support this kind of work. You're better off going to the Scene Shop or the Woodkworking Studio in the Arts Center. Nails are not engineering materials and are not allowed in the EDS. Design your systems to both go together and come apart, and you'll never need nails.
5. Super Glue. If you've truly designed a system to require super glue, I deeply don't believe you. Super glue is the lazy way of holding two things together that you didn't properly design to be held together. It's a messy cheat that serves to shortcut basic thinking that engineers must be capable of. The EDS does not have super glue and will not help you find super glue. Do not bring super glue into the EDS. Any super glue found in the EDS is subject to immediate disposal by anyone who sees it. Super glue is for fixing your broken glasses and is not an engineering material. Design your systems better, and you'll never need super glue.
6. Soldering. Sorry, but the EDS is not a makerspace or workshop. One should only ever need to solder in the most rare of cases of reworking surface mount components on PCBs or assembling final products. Most students looking for a soldeing iron are doing neither of those things.
7. Using aligator clips or crocodile clips. Sorry, these are for hobbyists. If you're prototyping, please plan better before building. Build more robust prototypes. If you are really at a phase of prototyping that requires this level of mess, consider using precision test leads with micrograbbers instead. If you are supplying power to a system, consider fabricating more robust wiring – clips have a tendency to slip and disconnect, and this never ends well.
8. Design Thinking
9. Constructive Solid Geometry
10. On-campus manufacturing
11. Claiming you "have midterms this week". Sorry to say, but students at NYUAD who are studying engineering will have "midterms" across the span of many weeks in each semester, especially when taking a mix of 14-week and 7-week classes. It's too easy to use this reason to not carve out time to work on projects you care about. Learn how to have not a "work-life-balance" but a "school-passions-life-balance" - your schoolwork will rarely be something exceptional that you will look back on fondly. Do your best work outside of class.
12. Closed-source, expensive software
13. Breadboards
14. USB Sticks
15. Treating Engineering like a hobby. Have hobbies. Do engineering. Not same things.
16. Treating the EDS like a living room.
17. Using middle-school and high-school knowledge to exectute university-level projects. Elevate your process.
18. Working on ill-concieved and non-critically-assessed class projects or capstones in the EDS. This causes noise and distracation to others who have committed to deeply consider the work they're undertaking and is not allowed in the EDS.
19. Working in the EDS on projects from another lab on campus. Unless there is a well-established collaboration between the EDS and the other lab, this type of behavior causes confusion about where the work was done. Normally, the other lab will claim credit for the work while the person working in the EDS will have drained our resources.
20. Getting "guidance" from a professor on a project being worked on in the EDS. While this sounds innocuous, it comes down to credit. In the EDS, we encourage students to get smart without having to go to an authority figure to ask if their answer is good. In academia, there is so little success to go around that anyone who touches a project that is successful will try to claim ownership of it. Be careful with your projects and take care that you're doing your best not to accidentally expose yourself to this credit-sucking vaccuum.
21. Being addicted to "Free" things on a university campus
22. Producing Meaningless Proofs-of-concepts
23. Not thinking hard enough about what to work on and why
24. Showing up thinking you know everything
25. Waiting until Capstone for your time to shine
26. Thinking you can compete on price alone
27. Valuing "correct" answers over "good" answers
28. Leaving dirty dishes in a sink
29. Pretending to wash a dish, without using soap, and putting that dish back into circulation
30. Having Loud Conversations
31. Having Loud Conversations in a language people around you don't understand
32. Using the phrase "I don't know how to..."
33. Bargaining to receive full or partial credit for objectively bad work
34. Waiting to take a course before learning something
35. Worshipping humans with the title "professor"
36. Saying "I ran out of time" instead of "I didn't dedicate enough time"
37. Searching in the ocean for a child lost in the woods
38. Valuing academic research over industry research and development (in engineering)
39. Trying to compete, head-to-head, with industry while in academia
40. Thinking that semesters mean something to adults in the real world
41. Thinking that summer vacation is a normal thing for adults in the real world
42. Sprinting to be a unicorn with an glaringly obvious idea
43. Tool Training Sessions / SOPs
44. Getting paid to work in the EDS
45. "Borrowing" tools from EDS
46. Using COVID-era excuses and mindsets for not working hard enough
47. Thinking a presentation or pitch deck is the hard work
48. Having weekly "check-in" meetings. You should see your teammates daily.
49. Claiming to be working with someone remotely (even just across campus) on a hard problem.
50. Blaming tools for your bad choices
51. Being busy for the sake of being busy
52. Mistaking a weekend project for a serious project just because you've let it baloon into a monster waste of time
53. Virtual Reality, blockchain, crypto, metaverse, NFT, etc.
54. Worshipping social media influencers
55. Asking time-wasting questions because you're socially anxious about silence
56. Thinking that the classroom is the singular way to gain new knowledge
57. Thinking that a textbook is the singular way to gain new knowledge
58. Thinking that a professor is the singular way to gain new knowledge
59. Thinking that a course is the singular way to gain new knowledge
60. Thinking that the value of a University Education is the courses taken
61. Demanding that the leash stays on
62. Commuting home between NYUAD and Dubai / Abu Dhabi on evenings / weekends
63. Treating NYUAD like high school
64. Chasing trends you've read about in the news or social media
65. Refusing to waste time on things you're passionate about
66. (Never thought this would need to be said) Glorifying or promoting ideas based on nationalism, ultranationalism, fascism, totalitarianism, authoritarianism, blind patriotism, MGTOW, misogyny, religion, racism, sexism, fanaticism, cults of personality, etc.
67. Walking into a Tarpit (Y-Combinator: Tarpit Ideas - What are Tarpit Ideas & How to Avoid Them) (Y-Combinator: Tarpit Ideas - The Sequel) (Y-Combinator: How to Get and Evaluate Startup Ideas) (Paul Graham: How to Get Startup Ideas)
68. Building first. Thinking... Never.
69. Working on silly ideas handed down to you from professors.
70. Hoping that the EDS will be your magical supply room. We have nothing for you.
71. Thinking you can "fix" the EDS by making it look more like something you already know. We're not a makerspace. We purposefully do not host workshops. We don't provide technical consulting. We don't lend tools. We don't supply parts or components. Come talk to us about ideas, instead. The lab has been carefully crafted to be exactly what it is, and while it might seem like it's "missing" something, this is a provocation to students to ask themselves why they think they need a particular resource; likely, it's out of a pseudo-addiction to something that isn't part of a professional value creation process.
72. Stolen Valor. Being associated with something is not the same as elevating and helping to transform a thing. Don't be a tourist on projects, and don't use the name of others, without permission, to promote yourself as being connected to them. Ask for introductions; it will help avoid confusion that, though it may benefit you in the short-term, will come back to bite you in the long-term.
73. Poaching contacts on LinkedIn, combined with stolen valor. Same as above. Also, don't do it on LinkedIn.
74. Demanding to be treated like a student.
75. Watching sports or playing video games in the EDS. Go to a social space to do these things; the EDS is a workspace and lab and does not allow students to engage in these distracting behaviors.
76. Compromising too readily to reach a speedy "consensus". This is a recipe for mediocrity. Although it is what students are taught in order to be "team players", it's not good advice. If the rest of your team has the goal of being done with something as soon as possible, and you have the goal of reaching a great answers, you will ALWAYS be asked to compromise quality for speed. Don't join teams like these. Take time to learn how to produce quality; you'll have the rest of your life to figure out how to do things quickly.