🏗️ A Wandering Village giveaway (two copies up for grabs!)

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Hello Fellow Engineers!

The only newsletter where villages ride dinosaurs, Nordic bridges score higher than your last math exam, and architects still lose to rectangles.

This week’s moveable feast includes:

🦕 A Wandering Village giveaway (two copies up for grabs!)
🌊 A bridge that disappears into the sea like it’s avoiding design input
💰 A mining game so addictive I accidentally founded a geological empire
⚡ A robot dog, satellite engineers, and castles without context

Basically, it’s everything you didn’t know you needed… and absolutely no unnecessary glass walkways.

Let’s dive into it 👇

This week, we’re giving away TWO copies of The Wandering Village! 🦕🌱

If you’ve ever wanted to build a thriving village on the back of a giant roaming creature, now’s your chance. Manage resources, survive toxic spores, and engineer a society that works even when the ground literally moves beneath you (unlike certain architect-led disasters we won’t name).

And now… cue the dino drumroll… 🥁

🏆 ryanar2🏆
🏆 gershonorkin🏆

Check your email for your game key and get ready to wander responsibly, preferably with reinforced trusses and zero decorative arches.

Missed out? Don't worry, more giveaways are stomping your way soon!

Want in on the next one? Vote in the poll in this email! 🗳️

👷‍♂️ Truss Me, I’m an Engineer…

The Road That Vanishes Into the Sea

Let’s talk about the Öresund Bridge, aka The Disappearing Road, where engineering flexes so hard, even Mother Nature blinked.

This isn’t just a bridge. It’s a bridge-tunnel hybrid connecting Denmark and Sweden that starts as a sleek cable-stayed span and then dives underwater like it’s trying to escape architectural oversight. Midway, the road vanishes into the sea and transitions into the Drogden Tunnel, emerging later like nothing happened.

Meanwhile, somewhere, an architect is arguing about curtain wall colors.

🧠 Why It’s Brilliant Engineering

• 16 km total length, combining:

  • 7.8 km cable-stayed bridge

  • 4 km man-made island (Peberholm)

  • 4 km immersed tunnel (Drogden Tunnel)
    Like three projects in one, but coordinated and actually functional.

• 20 tunnel segments, each 175 meters long, 55,000 tonnes apiece, sunk and locked underwater with centimeter-level precision.

• Withstands 54 m/s winds (120 mph) and carries rail + vehicle traffic.
  That's freight trains and Volvo drivers, side by side, defying the elements.

This project is the ultimate mic drop: "Oh, you built a building? Cute. We built a vanishing road across an international border. Underwater. In the North Sea. On a Tuesday."

⚡ Cool Links

🤖 White Rhino: The Fastest Robot Dog on Earth
A robot dog sprinted 328 feet in just 16.33 seconds (versus Usain Bolt’s 9.58s human record), and that’s officially a Guinness World Record.

🏆 Engineering Student Designs 3D‑Printed Prosthetics for Kids
Aussie engineer Milly Latcham won a major bursary for creating low-cost prosthetic limbs to help children in developing countries cycle, including for kids in Nepal. Engineers are literally empowering the next generation.

🇦🇪 UAE Trains Future Space Engineers
The UAE launched a 10-week satellite engineering program in collaboration with EDGE Group to build up domestic space mission know-how.

🎮 Indie Game Spotlight: Tiny Glade
A cozy medieval sandbox city-builder lets players construct castles, ruins, and cottages at their own pace. It’s been nominated for BAFTA’s Technical Achievement Award, too.

🎮 Upcoming Title: Sunkissed City from former Stardew Valley Dev
From a former Stardew Valley dev comes a farm‑life sim set in a charming city overrun by urban gardens, and maybe a monster or two. It blends city-building, dating sim vibes, and low fantasy flair, coming soon in 2025.

🃏 Civil Draft – Last Chance Weekend!

It’s the final weekend to grab your Civil Draft cards before orders close on August 17th! 🏗️

We’ve smashed through so many community goals already… but can we unlock every reward by the deadline? Engineers love a challenge, so let’s prove we can.

Engineers love a challenge, so let’s prove we can. See the goals left here and help push us over the finish line.

On the Archive Channel, you’ll see the rematch of the century: me vs. TheSuitedBird (my editor and co-creator of Civil Draft). This time, we’re ditching the starter decks and battling with decks made from our pack openings. The full video will also be on Patreon for all you behind-the-scenes superfans.

Miss this window and you’ll have to wait until March 2026 for Booshter Boxes to land… perfect for finishing your set once everyone has theirs.

🛠️ Grab your deck here → Civil Draft on Creo Cards

🐕‍🦺 Paddy’s Corner

Wanna play?

One from the archives - A very playful Paddy interrupts the World Cup!

👾 Indie Game of the Week:

🛠️ Indie Game of the Week: Keep On Mining
This week I discovered a game that finally answers the age-old question: What if engineers had infinite caffeine and a pickaxe made of gold?

In Keep On Mining, I accidentally invented a rock-based economy, leveled up 37 times, and unlocked a pickaxe named Sir Goldie.

Efficiency? Off the charts.

Upgrades? Questionable.

Rock destruction? Relentless.

💰 Like what you see? It's only $5 on Steam: Grab it here

It’s time for a Bridge Review!

This week, we’re heading to Narvik, Norway , home of icy fjords, epic views, and the Hålogaland Bridge, a structure so sleek and sensible it’s clearly the work of engineers who were left alone long enough to do their jobs properly.

At 1,533 meters long, it’s the second-longest suspension bridge in Norway, but more importantly, it has zero ornamental fins, glass walkways, or artistic “visions” slapped onto it by architects trying to win awards.

🧠 Engineering Feats That Slap:

• 1,145-meter main span, supported by two sensible pylons that look like they were drawn in a CAD file , not a fashion sketchbook.

• Survives Arctic winds, snow loads, and probably the odd reindeer traffic jam.

• Reduced construction costs by building much of it in China and shipping the segments over. Efficient? Yes. Fancy? No. Just how we like it

So yeah, the Hålogaland Bridge is an elegant, efficient, no-nonsense marvel of civil engineering. It gets the job done, looks good doing it, and doesn’t try to be anything it’s not. Just like a proper engineer.

🏗 r/realcivilengineer Spotlight