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The Secret Engineer
Inspiration for an engineering career can lie in some unexpected cultural places, as our anonymous blogger recollects
Calling International Rescue, the Starship Enterprise, and budding engineers
I have heard some engineers mention Meccano sets, or a fascination with steam trains, as the things that sparked their passion for engineering. Now I don’t think I ever got quite as excited by my Meccano set as they did, but I was greatly impressed by the exploits of a few fictional characters.
The first was Danny’s father in Danny the Champion of the World by Roald Dahl. Described as a fine mechanic, he chose to stop the young Danny from starting school until he could strip down and rebuild a small engine. His aspiration for Danny, however, is that he will become a famous design engineer; someone who will develop better engines for cars and aircraft. His father also stresses that to be a great design engineer Danny will have to do really well at school.
Meccano has been inspiring budding engineers — and their parents — for decades
Then there was Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott, chief engineer on board the Starship Enterprise. Scotty’s thorough understanding of basic principles combined with excellent problem-solving skills allows him to come up with innovative solutions to the various dire situations that the crew find themselves in. He demonstrates the essence of engineering and, of course, famously highlights the importance of physics to engineering on more than one occasion.
Ye cannae change the laws of physics, Captain!
My pet guinea pig was called ‘Brains’ after the engineer in Thunderbirds
Finally, my pet guinea pig was called ‘Brains’ after the incredible engineer in Thunderbirds. Brains is acknowledged as having a great intellect. Indeed, he managed somehow, single-handedly and secretly, to design and build the wonderful machines that International Rescue uses to save unlucky individuals from various disasters each episode. What proved equally inspirational is that I imagined I could, one day, make the models and maybe even the puppets in Thunderbirds myself — a feat that would, no doubt, provide some interesting engineering challenges. Challenges that, as a child, I imagined how I would overcome.
Not the Secret Engineer’s guinea pig.
I have to admit that in a practical sense, it was my high-school physics teacher that told me engineering was about applied physics and he was probably instrumental to my choice of career. Also, when I visited the engineering works where a friend of my father worked, I was fascinated by the machines cutting metal and creating something new and useful out of a lump of raw material.
So, to inspire the next generation, we probably need teachers who understand what engineering is all about and we need to ensure that kids see how we create things that make the world better. However, my worry is that Scotty and Brains might get lost among the plethora of X-Factor and The Only Way Is Essex ‘celebrities’.
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Readers' comments (15)
Bart Brejcha | 5 Jul 2012 1:09 pm
My HS teacher in the US couldn't tell me why I needed to learn Algebra other than that I was on a college track. bart@designengine.com
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Ken Foyn | 5 Jul 2012 2:01 pm
As a kid i used to strip my wind up toys to see how they worked,I could not put them back together as the springs all shot out of place,Then i got a Meccano set — be it the smallest of the range — and from then on i wanted bigger ones to build better projects, now engineering is in my blood.
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Paul Reeves | 5 Jul 2012 2:44 pm
The interesting and key thing is that Brains and Scottie, fictional as they were, were developed in a period of cultural optimism and economic boom, where it was felt that with the space race and moon landings 'anything was possible'. Now we are in a period of cultural and social pessimism (ironically with its origins in the same period of the 60s, with Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring, the ‘Counter Culture’ etc.)- where the negative side of the 60s (eco-doom, population growth out of control) has become dominant amongst people who see themselves as ‘progressive’. At best technology and engineering is now seen as plaster or technical fix – and the cause of many of today’s problems.
This is why it is difficult to inspire the next generation towards engineering in its optimistic sense of ‘changing the world’ in a positive, open ended way, which is or would be really exiting. I might add that these cultural effects have also had in my opinion in the world of art as well, with a lot of art being introspective, individual and atomized. I’m not saying that all our problems stem from the 60’s hippy culture, many aspects such as equal rights were positive, but perhaps in a period of economic uncertainty and where growth is not always seen as good, then the negative aspects of these ideas have outshone the optimistic aspects of the 50s/60s.
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Ray Edwards | 5 Jul 2012 3:15 pm
Hear, hear you hear me cry; create interest in engineering and technology in young people.
So why remove Technology from the curriculum?
Have I missed the point?
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Paul | 6 Jul 2012 9:40 am
It may seem extreme but if our culture carries on the way it is with absolute focus by the younger generation on things like X Factor and The Only Way Is.......... I can foresee 2 possible senarios;
We will end up a nation (world?) full of service providers or a world where machines have indeed taken over because there is no-one with the knowledge to stop them!
Of course the 3rd possibility is a world peopled only with celebrities!!!
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Kerry John Quilter | 6 Jul 2012 10:20 am
'Danny the Champion of the World', 'Brains', and 'Scotty' were all champions for mankind.
Born out of the '60s they took on board 'Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country?' as John Kennedy famously said.
Unfortunately this is very different to the me too culture in existence today; where bankers make £20 million a year by swindling everyone else.
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JohnK | 6 Jul 2012 4:34 pm
I believe education should be heavily weighted toward 'science/engineering/manufacturing' disciplines. Indeed I'd go further and make all science & engineering related degrees free and all arts type degrees charged at full cost.
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Alfredo M. Claussen | 6 Jul 2012 6:21 pm
Inspiration for engineering for me was a long, continuous process; starting with the coloring books given to me by my parents at age 3. I can clearly remember that those showed the first images of the (then) new type of commercial airliners propelled by jet engines. My very first "engineering task" was to "correct" the line drawings adding to them the "missing" propellers! (all the planes I had seen flying overhead our house at that time (1957), were piston engined, the first jets that currently flew to Mexico City didn't until the 60's). Later on, I received a large bag full of plastic construction blocks, and later my first Meccano (No.6)... it was such a joy, that I kept improving at school, in order to insist my father to give me a larger one (No. 7), which was quite expensive, but of top quality. My first electric train was the excellent "American Flier" brand, much more realistic and detailed than the popular "Lionel", and my father took care to teach me to discern the difference between them, and the concept of appreciation. Then at 7 years old, I started to assembly "Revell" and "Monogram" plastic models. Dad teached me to keep improving them, and watching me to place care and dedication above speed and haste. In that manner, I had a full week to assemble and paint a 1/48 scale WWII fighter plane model.
at secondary school, I attended two courses that I really liked above all: One was a carpentry shop and the other was a short course on electrical wire splicing... thus I had to buy my first electrician pliers and my first soldeting iron, wow! What a thrill to be able to solder some wires and wiring a very simple plug, switch and lightbulb socket! My favorite magazina was "Popular Mechanics", and each and every month I eagerly waited for my copy. Then came High School and my first chemistry classes, but I preferred the corresponding labs over the theory. One of my professors was a true engineer completely in love with the profession, and it was then that I decided to study Chemical engineering, because it covered so many fields and included mechanical and structural aspects too. By that years I was heavily into "technical" hobbies, like audio electronics and acoustic ventures, photography, model airplanes and cars, and my love with mechanics and automobiles. Before I completed my Bachelor's degree, I noticed that there were two disctinct classes of engineers: ones with grease and dirt in their hands, and those that only dealt with desk items! and then decided I wanted to get my hands as dirty as possible, so I learnt how to weld, cut with a torch and how to operate a lathe. I did NOT want to become a "desk" engineer, but a "field, troubleshooting capable one"... And after 33 years working I'm still considered a fine engineer respected by many colleages, and plan to keep busy doing engineering for as long as I can, and pray that God gives me the necessary time and health put keep pushing! As Ken Foyn well said above: engineering is in my blood, and I still enjoy those Thunderbirds and Star Trek (TNG) TV series.
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Alfredo M. Claussen | 6 Jul 2012 8:39 pm
In response to JohnK:
"make all arts type degrees charged full cost"???
Reeaaally?...
Don't forget Engineering IS an art...
and that every great engineering achievement contains a dose of artful application of technology and science.
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Jon Jennings | 9 Jul 2012 6:15 pm
LEGO did it for me, in fact I've just ordered a LEGO mindstorm so I can start programming and designing robots which is one of the reasons I went into engineering. Shame engineering is so dull and un-inventive in the real world though, all it involves is sitting behind a computer 9 to 5 doing CAD work, no building,testing, developing new ideas, engineering companies are now just run by accountants.
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