Mad Hot Engineering

Today, one of my coworkers, Kate, and I put on a presentation about engineering for a group of young Boy Scouts at Science Place over in Dallas. The scouts were all 8 to 10 years old and were attending the workshop so they could obtain their engineering merit badge. The fact that there is an engineering merit badge makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. There wasn't such a badge when I was in wolf cub scouts but there were many badges for outdoor activities and athletics. Kids these days who are interested in engineering have so many more programs and outlets available for them, in part because of the rise of computers in the home and the workplace. Where I had to be content with playing with Lego in the basement, today a kid into engineering can compete against other schools building bridges out of drinking straws just as if he were on the football team. I'm not sure if the cheerleaders go for it yet though.

So Kate and I with the help of Amy were given about 15 to 20 minutes to talk about what engineering is, what all the different types of engineers design, what different engineering jobs one can have and what we do at work as engineers ourselves. I think that we did a good job as none of the kids seemed to get really bored and were all eager to answer questions, and the parents were just as interested. We presented them with lists of items and asked them to name items that were not designed by engineers (answers: canned food, milk, websites, mountains) which was enlightening for some I'm sure. Engineers really do design nearly everything. We dressed a volunteer up in PPE (hardhat, safety glasses, orange vest, steel toes) and had him measure the size of the room with a measuring wheel. We rolled out some of our more impressive drawings and sets of plans showing them different items on the aerial photos and designs. Then it was time for them to do some engineering of their own as they set about making bridges out of sugar cubes, drawing a floorplan of the room, looking at some simple circuits and building a catapult, which were tested by launching marshmallows down the hall. At the conclusion of the workshop, the scout were given squishy hard hats, tiny metal engineering scales and calculators courtesy of my employers marketign swag cabinet. It was one of my most fun days as an engineer in recent memory.

Following the workshop and a farewell lunch with Kate, who is leaving the company to return to grad school, Amy and I went to see "Mad Hot Ballroom". It's a documentry about how they teach ballroom dancing to all the Grade 5 students in public schools in New York City and at the end of the 10 week program they have a competition where one school is crowned champion and wins a trophy that is taller than most of the students. The schools take this very seriously and these kids can really dance, and I mean really really dance, complete with perfect Cuban motion and all the attitude and facial expression they can muster. There was one little boy who was way too swauve for his age; he made Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire look like clumsy bumbling nerds. It's highly entertaining, has the same competition factor as "Spellbound" and is just oh-so cute. Go see it.