Last week I had a chance to see young innovators in action. I visited the Pappalardo Lab at MIT and watched a flurry of undergraduate students making last minute changes to their robot designs as they were in final testing stages. Here are a few videos from my visit (sorry about the low resolution).
These robots are built to compact ‘garbage’ (aluminum cans) and stack bales of ‘trash’ (wooden blocks) in a desolate urban landscape. In addition, these little bots must move around a large boot enclosing a lone green plant. Do these robot tasks sound familiar? While I was in the lab dedicated instructors worked into the night to help students fixing and tweaking their creations. You can check out the course website for more details about this robot competition. Also, here is an article describing some South Carolina students working on a similar project.
These projects are great fun. The instructors explained to me how building a physical robot can be an enlightening experience for students, particularly for those who have studied mechatronic systems in their coursework, but have never actually had to build a physical robot. You can expect to encounter many unanticipated problems along the way; friction, alignment, compliance, or other issues arise that were not anticipated by students in the design stage. Building a working, reliable robot forces students to solve difficult real-world problems that go beyond textbook understanding.
The skills these students are developing have tremendous value. Last week President Obama delivered a speech to the National Academy of Sciences, and discussed pressing issues that highlight why robot competitions and other technical learning opportunities are so important to our future. He explained that “in no area will innovation be more important than in the development of new technologies to produce, use, and save energy — which is why my administration has made an unprecedented commitment to developing a 21st century clean energy economy, and why we put a scientist in charge of the Department of Energy.” He added that “the nation that leads the world in 21st century clean energy will be the nation that leads in the 21st century global economy.” President Obama also announced his goal to bring research investments up to three percent of GDP, and declared that “we will not just meet, but we will exceed the level [of investment] achieved at the height of the space race.” It is reassuring to learn that energy, the environment, and research are such high priorities. We need this level of investment to maintain our leadership and our quality of life. To meet these lofty goals we must engage more Americans; designing and building these new energy systems, as well as advancing energy efficiency, will require world-class innovation and collaboration. Engineering design is playing a central role in this transition.
I have three questions for you today:
What do you think of hands-on student projects like the one at MIT?
How do you view the role of engineering education in securing a sustainable future?
What about engineering literacy for the rest of us? How would a better understanding of engineering design by citizens and policy-makers help our transition to sustainability?
To accelerate our transition to a clean energy system, we need better policy design and better engineering design. The latter requires a greater pool of passionate and skilled engineers, something the U.S. is sorely lacking (particularly as we near mass retirement of experienced engineers). Douglas Marriott wrote in to the magazine Mechanical Engineering to discuss his experience teaching engineering students:
“I found the most promising students were the farm boys, people who knew before they came to college how many sides there are to a hex nut. It is always easier to teach math to someone with a mechanical aptitude than to teach mechanical aptitude to a mathematician.”
The proportion of Americans growing up on farms is shrinking, but there are certainly others who grow up developing a mechanical aptitude. It’s my perception that many youth have grand potential as innovators and engineers, but get distracted (video games?) or discouraged somewhere along the way. We can do a better job encouraging youth to consider challenging and rewarding engineering and science careers. As our children are growing up we can do more to cultivate their curiosity for how things are put together and how they work. We might not even need to point out or provide opportunities for them to experiment and explore, just provide them with the time, space, and physical and mental tools they need.
For example, during high school I drove an old Toyota, and at one point it needed a new transmission. My father purchased for me a wrecked Toyota, the same model and year as the one I drove, so that I could salvage the transmission and other parts. He helped where he could with the repairs, making it possible for me to keep going with my ‘experiment’ of learning how to replace a transmission. After the repairs were done, I got curious. I started taking apart the junker car, piece by piece. I wanted to know how cars were really put together. Rather than getting upset at the mess, my parents recognized the value of this experiment. After a few weeks I had the car stripped completely down to its frame. I continued tinkering, experimenting, building, and designing; my passion for solving technical problems continued to grow over the years.
We need more young people who grow up thinking about technical problems (whether fixing cars or fixing our energy system), and dreaming up solutions, so by the time they are in the workplace they can get right to business helping turn things around for us. Important technical problems, like energy use and production, need to become kitchen-table discussion topics. Let’s not shy away from them just because they are technical. These issues affect all of us, and we need to get interested and informed.
Engineers really add value to an economy and improve quality of life for many. We need more creators and innovators right now. What can we do to inspire more people to choose professions like this, even if we are not engineers ourselves?
