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Marine Engineer
Designs and maintains the machinery and systems aboard ships and offshore platforms.
Did you know?
The biggest container ships, such as MSC Irina (2023), can carry more than 24,000 standard 20-foot containers.
How subjects help
- Physics: Work out why a ship floats and how cargo weight changes its balance in rough seas.
- Mathematics: Calculate the fuel and engine power needed to cross an ocean on time.
- Chemistry: Protect a ship's hull and pipes from salty seawater that makes metal rust.
- Engineering: Maintain and repair the huge engines, pumps and generators deep inside a ship.
A famous name
John Ericsson: Swedish-American engineer who designed the ironclad ship USS Monitor and an early ship propeller.
Try it yourself: Make a broom-handle pulley
- Tie one end of the rope to the first broom handle, then loop it once around the second broom handle.
- Your helpers stand about a metre apart, each holding a broom and gently trying to keep them apart.
- Pull the loose end of the rope slowly and feel how hard it is to bring the brooms together. Never yank, and never put rope round anyone.
- Loop the rope around both handles again, then again, and pull each time. It gets easier, but you have to pull out more rope. Why?
Cranes and ships' winches use pulleys with many rope loops so a small pull can move a very heavy load, and crane operators know how the rope is threaded to decide what they can lift.
Adapted from TeachEngineering (University of Colorado Boulder): Powerful Pulleys.
Also try: Build a foil boat that carries coins.
Known for it in
Norway, South Korea, Japan, UK, Greece