Engineering is a highly technical field, but it makes use of exceedingly useful and straightforward ideas.
How To Accept Over-Engineering For What It Really Is (Fagner Brack, 2016) - https://hackernoon.com/how-to-accept-over-engineering-for-what-it-really-is-6fca9a919263
Summary of the ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers) philosophy on engineering tolerances - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geometric_dimensioning_and_tolerancing#Dimensioning_and_tolerancing_philosophy
A good explanation of Graceful Degradation (aka failing gracefully) vs. Fault Tolerence (aka robustness) - https://www.sparkfun.com/news/1674
Boeing 777 Wing Flex Test - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ai2HmvAXcU0
A bigger tank (the Landkreuzer P.1000 Ratte) - https://i.pinimg.com/originals/62/3f/0a/623f0a84c8c844dc9df8f017f3ff7a95.jpg