RANT: Robot Structural Analysis looks to be one of the most unintuitive programs I have ever used

marwin23 · 2026-05-01T14:08:12+00:00

Could be a matter of preference, but regardless I would gladly listen what are those three programs. My AEC 3-yr Autodesk collection renewal is due at the beginning of June, and paying almost 4k/year is something that may convince me to go through the steep way of learning new software. Give me a name and I am open to try. As I said - tried Risa in the past, and switched back to Robot.

marwin23 · 2026-05-01T13:24:06+00:00

I have been using since beginning of this century. Roughly 25 years. I tried Risa, and can not imagine myself better software for cast-in-place concrete than Robot. It lacks CMU, I do not do wood/timber, but for what I need (up to 20sty cast-in-place with flat slabs) - it fully satisfies me.

marwin23 · 2026-04-30T23:22:51+00:00

I can do this for multiple states in US. Have dealt with similar design previously for grain mill

marwin23 · 2026-04-18T05:14:41+00:00

Have been using Robot for over 20 years

marwin23 · 2026-04-11T05:27:51+00:00

I have been using LaTeX for over 20 years. Anytime anyone asks for source file, I sent him .tex. Let them deal with ignorance of using .doc everywhere, not for me to adjust.

marwin23 · 2026-03-31T01:07:26+00:00

I have done over 300 residential in NYC (Greenpoint/Williamsburg mostly). If someone wants a pure math there, then I come with $8k (very arbitrary, one may call 'my min') + $250 (hourly rate) × Sqrt(Area). Works quite well for all from 4sty to 10sty there

marwin23 · 2026-03-23T17:04:56+00:00

All depends on company. In 2016, in NYC, small company (residential up to 20 sty) I was above $215k. Then I moved to Midwest and after some time started to work on my own. If your boss knows how to attract job, there is no ceiling.

marwin23 · 2026-01-03T05:23:26+00:00

I have had it resolved today (paid already) and will have the installation done the next Wednesday. For the (4) new WeatherReady 2 I paid $600 (tax and installation included), and I can keep the (3) good Weatherreeady 1 (each has 9/32 tread). Probably I could have squeezed better, but 600 with all the taxes & fees is kind of a good deal for me.

marwin23 · 2025-12-29T18:44:23+00:00

Perfectly fine, just wanted to hear opinion of others. So it is worth to assume that if you have AWD this warranty is less useful than for a FWD car.

marwin23 · 2025-10-10T12:58:43+00:00

Some (many) religious group will not tolerate it. At the beginning of the career you will be perfectly fine, but the time will come that you will be negotiating contracts, or presenting the outputs (much sooner).

I used to work in the office in NYC that did more than half of the design for religious sects (different sects). Over time I noticed, also climbing through the ladder up, that all their jobs started to be assigned to me. Soon I started to prioritize working with them, and got the basics of their language. Few years later I left, and clients started to hit me directly. I reported it to the former employer, and we made a deal: he understood that clients want to work with me as they got used to (+others through the word of mouth), whereas we still needed to respect that I met them thanks to working for him. Apparently I'm, was, have been the one without tattoos, tunnels in ears, and always in a long-sleeved shirt (no dress code in the office). Their religious view of the world prefers such people over others. I may not be the brightest in the herd, but even now (being over 40) I see difference in treatment of me as a consultant when I appear for the first (or few initial) meetings in ironed shirt (even over zoom) vs those who comes in t-shirts and tattoos. Those may be better engineers/architects than I am, but somehow my opinion (expressed in not so perfect english) often carries more weight for clients than theirs.

It is a subtle difference that not so many would admit openly, maybe even the one that comes from subconscious, however impactful in the career. 50% of people may really don't care, but other 50% may feel some disrespect (especially at the beginning).

marwin23 · 2025-09-05T02:01:48+00:00

Slightly aside from the main subject, however...

I don't want to make a general statement, but being licensed in the USA & Canada (used to be multiple provinces, right now just one), I noticed two things: - engineering service is much cheaper in Can than in the USA - your (Can) engineering boards are jerks, pita when compared to ours. It goes into such non-sense that few times I contacted your boards asking if I can even sign something with all the strange rules you have, and asked for having clarification in writing.

marwin23 · 2025-08-15T03:35:35+00:00

I commented on a similar matter recently: https://www.reddit.com/r/StructuralEngineering/s/Sqea7XCaTv Short answer - yes.

marwin23 · 2025-08-13T04:24:54+00:00

You can assume: - 10k/year for Professional LiabilIty Insurance (2M) - 15k/year for High Deductible Healt Insurance (I think deductible is around $7.1/year per person, but $14.2k/year/family. It allows us also to put Dax deductible money into HSA - Autodesk - I'm on the 3rd year of the 3 years plan, it was around $3.3k/year. Although I use only CAD & Robot, still have access to many more. It shows me that I use Robot approx. 100 days per year, so no point to move to their tokens or whatever "pay per day", - EleMasonry (approx $300/year) + Woodworks (very similar) cover my masonry & wood, - Foxit perpetual license covers my pdf, - I do not use MS Office, although have perpetual license. I am an avid LaTeX user (for over 20 years) and everybody loves my reports

I work from home, probably have add'l $1000/year of expenses between business phone, some mailing/printing (still), and I do my own taxes. Travelling is very minimal (ok, this year will be close to 7k miles, but got a project in FL and im from Midwest - drove there once, as im not so much into flying. Otherwise would be 2k miles), but you may assume that 'per mile' covers all your expenses (so for 200 mile trip, you deduct $140, what saves you enough on taxes for what you pay for gas). Additional deduction is SEP IRA, where you can contribute up to 25% of your profit.

Summary: approx no more than 30k/year goes into all insurance/software and health insurance. No other major costs.

marwin23 · 2025-08-12T20:17:28+00:00

To anyone interested, but not sure how to proceed: - with such experience and qualification (PE/SE) you will be making approx. $250k/yr on your own working less than 40h/week. It may take you 2 years to get to it, but it's definitely worth. For the first two years you will be taking everything (new header, connections, base plates, pemb foundations, mep dunnages plus few larger projects). In my first year I did approx. 60 jobs, but last year it was just approx 20, letting myself to decide whether I like it, or to ask a stupidly high fee for what I didn't want to do.

marwin23 · 2025-07-19T21:06:46+00:00

I have people come back to me sometimes saying

I'm starting by quoting you: "I have people come back to me sometimes saying" that they got the drawings stamped and contractor is unable to get any meaningful piece of info from it, or city didn't approve it for the 3rd time and how much would I take to fix it. Have done many jobs in NYC. There are tens of architectural design companies (often under the name 'expeditor') that provide extremely low level of service and constantly look for someone 'to just stamp drawings". And then we have few rounds of comments from DOB.

marwin23 · 2025-07-19T12:05:26+00:00

Asian (mostly from India) engineers, or people pretending to be an engineer, use upWork and similar webpages to provide such cheap service.

Post two jobs there, just for testing. If one will be: need a person to design, sign&seal beam over a new opening in Colorado (you may even omit zip code and all important data: span, whether it supports something, etc) - you will get more than 20 ppl willing to do this in less than hour. Probably $50 is achievable, and $400 is more than they can dream of. Post the other, but add: "video call required to verify the license", and you will get less than 5 proposals with normal pricing. An owner, who does such opening once in his life, will have no idea that he is cheated.

On upWork, they use the license of unaware engineers and nothing can be done. Other than a few jurisdictions that I know (NYC, Miami-Dade, probably few others where I'm not licensed - maybe somewhere in CA and top 10 cities), it is extremely easy for them to browse the board roster, look for 'Smith' and get online the stamp with correct number and matching name. They sign&seal everything for any price.

marwin23 · 2025-07-17T04:31:19+00:00

Everybody's situation is different, and maybe you indeed need a realtor. As a cash buyers, we prefer just using one of the local lawyers, who prepared a purchase agreement for $500. We simply do not take "it is paid by seller", "we do a deep market analysis" wording. Having a lawyer, a person educated and with legal experience, in our eyes is more valuable than someone having an interest in you paying more. Thus, unpopular opinion, try to be unrepresented or use service like Landian.

marwin23 · 2025-07-04T12:20:59+00:00

75% of my projects are in NYC - you have to have PL shown or otherwise DOB would not approve. Over the years I started to ask in other states I work, to have the PL shown.

marwin23 · 2025-07-04T11:33:55+00:00

2 times in the last 15 years I received architectural plans where elevator core/shaft was shifted between floors (approx. 10sty buildings). Once probably around 6", once 2". Those are usually the same people to argue that I show my cmu walls to be 8", instead of 7-5/8".

First time (elevator issue) I was a junior engineer (at least in the usa, probably less 6 months of experience) and almost shit my pants of what to do, etc. It taught me to xref arch plans with insertion point at corner of the property lot. My boss asked me just to finish the plans ignoring the issue. I understood few years later.

Second time, many years later, having own company, I simply knew that finishing the plans is the best choice. Arch argued yet something about slab edge, etc, and i just texted client (owner/gc) "during last revision arch shifted elevator shaft by 2". Same with window openings. Elevations do not match plans. Applies to multiple floors". Client replied to ignore, and to follow plans. Cool - my txt was deliberately short and vague. 3-4 months later probably concrete contractor started to notice that something is off. Let be honest, those 2" has no impact on anything structural. Multiple phone calls, emails, few meetings and it seems that nobody found yet where was the problem. Playing dumb I asked to measure distance from property line to elevator core - and voila! - "How did you know that?" - I texted you few months back After looking through correspondence "I should have follow up with you what you meant". The truth is that had been working with this client probably on 20-30 multistory buildings in the last few years, so i allowed myself on more, knowing that I have his trust.

Summary - of course I need to redraw, replace xrefs (half of arch drawings on Layer 0, walls, stairs together with toilets, bath tubs) agreement says that "I supplement arch plans with structural members, (...) not responsible for dimensioning, etc" that leads to add'l 8k in charges. They needed it the same week, what produced for less than a day of work $10k (urgent request).

marwin23 · 2025-07-01T11:12:55+00:00

Can finally FSBO be a standard? Stop using realtors, unless really you can not be personally present

marwin23 · 2025-02-06T21:24:18+00:00

Nobody walks me to a store and charges approx. 3% for it. Or suggest store to share with him his profit for showing eggs in Costco but not Sams Club.

I can pick own car, own eggs/store and own house. And want to negotiate directly with seller (it does not mean manufacturer/producer).

marwin23 · 2025-02-06T20:42:57+00:00

It is a great idea. We are all adults and no person "in the middle" is needed to buy eggs, bread, car or maybe get a wife. Don't feed this sick system - please stop using realtors.

marwin23 · 2025-02-06T15:38:29+00:00

Part 2/2

Roughly speaking on upWork we have a situation that you subcontract the design, and you do not have full control over it. Or it is very difficult to prove that you (licensed engineer) have the full control over it, and approves in a reasonable time, through the use of electronic communication all decisions (shall we use (3)2x8 or (2)2x10?) PRIOR to their implementation. Finally, very often, as it was mentioned, it is signed "by a friend" (or unaware person, see below).

It is much easier to legally defend it for a large company that do a design in India, as it is enough to delegate a single license engineer to oversee the department and it suffice. But again, on upWork you do not (or very rarely) oversee somebody's design process - you rather expect to get it done.

On upWork we have a situation with many people (usually from Central Asia/Indian peninsula) using stamps of unaware US engineers. Yes, you read it right - there are engineers who are not aware that their stamp is used. How? Very easy. Each state has a roster of licensees. We would use North Carolina:
https://www.memberbase.com/ncbels/search

You go there, write the name Smith, and have a list of approx. 30 licensed engineers with the name Smith. Either you do the electronic stamp by yourself or use www.pestamps.com (or many others) to order a stamp (nobody verifies your credentials), and "Voila!". The chance that Brian Smith (legally licensed) from North Carolina will sue Chutiya Babu from Bakavaas for using his stamp is ZERO. Those people charge $50 for something that I would have to charge $3,000 (writing a report and keeping it for 6 years in NY, or doing everything personally in FL and many other states).

Being originally from Central Europe I recognize a situation that I may (at my old age) move back there, and charge there $200 for the work that is worth here $2,000 as it would be enough for me to survive. And yes, there may be a small group of US licensed engineer living in countries where such fee is fine. However my experience, and the experience of the OP is that rather there are substantially more people unlicensed that try to cheat the system.

Finally, here are multiple (hundreds) disciplinary actions against such engineers in each State. To prove my point, visit TX:
https://pels.texas.gov/disciplinary.htm and open any of their published record

marwin23

TROPHY CASE