Camp Invention – For practicing engineers?

I just got back from the Camp Invention Inventor’s Showcase at the local grade school. My son, Noah, (the shovel model from the previous post) spent a week at this program sponsored by the US Patent and Trademark Office and the National Inventors Hall of Fame.  www.campinvention.org   What a great program for grade school kids!  About ½ of the kids stood up proudly in front of nearly 50 parents, siblings, and friends to discuss their inventions.  Even though the inventions were imaginary, constructed primarily with Duck and Masking Tape (Yes…I meant Duck, not Duct…great story there too!), these kids presented their concepts with more confidence than many senior engineers I know.  I fought back the anxiety that usually accompanies a customer’s revelation that tape will be involved in an analysis and listened to the design engineers of tomorrow talk about their plans.  The most common theme, by far, was “Robots that do Chores.”  Not surprising, huh?

The wide-eyed, anything’s possible look on these kids’ faces was incredibly refreshing and reminded me of my earlier days as a design engineer when… well… anything seemed possible.  I’m sad to say that I don’t see a lot of that when I go out and talk to customers and I probably don’t show that enthusiasm myself any longer either.  When did we lose our passion for design?  When did it become a “JOB”? 

I know I’ve been a little more creative and productive this week after seeing the unbridled creativity in these little inventors.  Maybe we should use play more in our design companies to keep the “juices flowing”.  I remember when I first started doing FEA, I called it “Engineering Nintendo” and thought it was incredible to be paid for having so much fun.  I still love my career choice and the endless opportunities that being involved with the COSMOS team & product has opened up for me.  My wish this weekend for all of you is that you find a way to make your job fun and realize how cool it really is to be able to do some of the things we can do with today’s tools and technologies.

Have a great weekend!

Vince

Comments

[SolidWorks Tutorials for highschool use]

I am working on training for use in high schools to help this type of project. HS students love using SWX and have extremely creative minds. But it is so important for them to build a solid foundation for solid modeling and not develop sloppy habits.