I love this post because it shows some real engineering. The fact they put so much effort into the test equipment shows that there's some serious characterization going on vs. just throwing together parts.
I really wouldn't call this "real" engineering. As a mechanical engineer it really sounds like they literally threw it together and hoped it fit after they tested the motors "...models were assembled together in the CAD software to check for fit, clearance, and interference." I saw no mention of fatigue analysis or FEA, both are now days required for "real" mechanical engineering. Without that just cross your fingers the motors don't fall off after 1000 miles. Other than that it is pretty comprehensive.
Our engineering team spends much of its time and effort on failure analysis. FEA is one of many tools we use during the design process, and we left out some details in this post for the sake of brevity and clarity.
Properly engineered stuff will work as designed. Imagine an A380 falling out of the sky on the test flight and engineers exchanging betting money based on whether it flew or crashed. "Well, that didn't work.".
Engineering does everything to take the uncertainty out of design as much as possible. It's the anti-thesis of throwing things together to see if they work.
Ok, there are some things that don't lend to the iterative approach. Airbuses, bridges and skyscrapers would be three examples.
When you are designing the wing for the A380, probably a good idea to bust out the FEA software. But it's still going to be tested with hydraulic rams.
As far as I am concerned, bridges have fallen, buildings have broken, and airplanes have crashed. I guess its a different iterative process then software, but neverthless, it is an iterative process.
