Typical Day
Ohmar Watts wakes up to his digital alarm clock at 6:30AM sharp. While most people just hit snooze and roll back over, Ohmar knows exactly how the machine works, so he treats it with a little more respect. (But just a little—after all, he's still pretty sleepy.)
Ohmar's in a hurry to get out of his apartment, and inhales a nutritious breakfast of diodes and motor oil—wait, check that—an onion bagel with cream cheese and lox. Soon after, he's off to work at the Robo-Motors factory, where he and his team have been working on obstacle detection functions for the new self-driving "Model Rob." That's "Rob" for robot.
Rob's making some new friends. (Source)
As the project director, Ohmar facilitates communication between the executives and the R&D team. The first thing on his agenda today is to meet with the execs for a status update. These meetings keep the higher-ups informed enough to let Ohmar get back to the hard science stuff he enjoys so much. There's not much of a disconnect between the execs and the engineers—at least not like the disconnect between TV execs and writers. The execs here aren't telling Ohmar that the "Model Rob" has to have a love interest that's a flustered accountant—thank goodness.
In fact, the executives often have ideas that are helpful. Many of them have engineering degrees as well, and have worked their way up from the lab.
Today, the company's president, Frank Robo, chimes in that the remote sensing hardware system that Ohmar and his team are building is coming along, but it still needs to be improved to accommodate for an object approaching at the equivalent of up to 200 miles per hour. He's concerned about the possibility of a head-on-approach-by-a-speeding-maniac type scenario (who can blame him—the roads are crazy), and the sensor is not yet sensitive enough.
Before the meeting adjourns, Frank also addresses the need to get the auto-horn ready for testing. The operating system on which the machine will function is more complete than the machine itself. In other words, Ohmar and his team need to work faster.
Back in the lab, Ohmar communicates to his team that they need to significantly upgrade the range of their detector without sacrificing sensitivity to interference, and so the rest of the work day is devoted to initial brainstorming, organizing, and pre-research for the next phase of the project.
The team bounces around ideas for everything from raised 3D cameras above the car, to systems base echolocation. They're determined to settle on the most economical solution—as with many work-related things, money is a pretty big factor.
Meanwhile, Ohmar works independently to draw up a schematic of the auto-horn. Ohmar and his team have a long road ahead of them, but the company wouldn't ask more of them than they could take on. At 5:00PM the team knocks off, but Ohmar stays a bit later to wrap things up.
After unwinding at home for a bit, Ohmar meets up with an old friend from college, Anthony Voltaire, for some putt-putt. Voltaire is the founder and president of a successful biomechanics company, Voltaire Inc.
Anthony tells Ohmar that there have been some fascinating developments in brain-machine interfacing, or BMI. "Interesting," says Ohmar, as he lines up his putt. Good thing Anthony's an engineer and not a caddie—he's way too chatty on the course.
He continues on, telling Ohmar that he is creating a Voltaire subsidiary that will be entirely focused on BMI technology, and, for the umpteenth time, offers Ohmar a job. Ohmar looks up as he swings, and his putt sails wide of the castle door and into the moat. As the ball rattles around and is finally shot out to the other side of the hole, Ohmar politely declines the offer. He tells Anthony that he prefers the consistency and peace he finds at his current...(give it a second)...job.
Anthony shanks his putt, too, and in a fit of rage pulls out a laser gun and blasts a new hole for the ball. As the two friends laugh, they hop into Voltaire's hovercraft in time to make their dinner reservation. At dinner, Anthony excuses himself to wash his laser gun. As Ohmar sits there, munching on mozzarella sticks, he wonders if anyone else gets a vaguely villainous vibe from Voltaire.
Disclaimer: That last part didn't happen—although they did order some mozzarella sticks. However, given another thirty years or so of developments in the field of electrical engineering, hovercrafts might be possible, right? Maybe?
Ohmar is home around 9:00PM, and at 10:30PM he lays his weary robot head to rest.
Little side note here: It turns out that electrical engineers are not, in fact, robots. They're actual human engineers who work with electronics. We just assumed otherwise.
He may not have a special someone to share his home with, or a Nobel Prize (not yet, at least), but as Ohmar turns off the lights, he revels in the afterglow of even the smallest advances and discoveries of the day, and drifts off into a weird, happy, math-filled dream, knowing that he loves his job and can't wait to get back to work tomorrow.