Video Games Can Aid Creativity
By RICK NAUERT PHD Senior News Editor
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on May 27, 2008
New research discovers video games that energize players and
facilitate a positive mood could also enhance creativity.
However, the study also finds that players who were not highly energized and had a
negative mood, registered the highest creativity.
The findings suggest that either high or low arousal is key to creativity. In other words,
medium amounts of arousal are not conducive to creativity.
“When you are highly aroused, the energy itself acts as a catalyst, and the happy mood acts
as an encouragement. It is like being in a zone where you cannot be thrown off your game,”
explain researchers.
A negative mood, especially when there is low arousal, brings a different kind of energy that
makes a person more analytical, which is crucial to creativity as well.
“You need defocused attention for being creative,” said S. Shyam Sundar, professor of film,
video and media studies at Penn State.
“When you have low arousal and are negative, you tend to focus on detail and become more
analytical.”
Sundar and Elizabeth Hutton, a Penn State graduate student, are trying to understand the
value of video games as a vehicle for sparking positive social traits, such as creativity.
Fun and games aside, video games are viewed as a serious communication technology.
Schools, corporations and even the government are increasingly employing it as a tool in
enhancing learning and decision-making.
“Video games are not just for entertainment alone,” says Sundar. “We are trying to figure
out how they can aid in education as well.”
In the study, conducted as part of Hutton’s graduate thesis, 98 undergraduate and graduate
students were asked to play a popular video game, Dance Dance Revolution, at various
levels of complexity.
The students took a standard creativity test after playing. The researchers also took
readings of the players’ skin conductance and asked players if they were feeling either
positive or negative after the game.
“We looked at two emotional variables: arousal and valence,” said Hutton. “Arousal is the
degree of physical excitation — as measured through skin conductance — and valence,
which is the range of positive or negative feeling.”
When the researchers ran a statistical analysis of the two emotional variables and the
students’ creativity scores, they found two totally different groups with high scores.
Players with a high degree of arousal and positive mood were most likely to have new ideas
for problem solving. The statistical tests also revealed that creativity scores were highest for
players with low arousal and a negative mood.
In real-life terms, the study appears to indicate that after playing the game, happy or sad
people are most creative, while angry or relaxed people are not.
Sundar and Hutton, the lead author on the paper, presented their findings at the 58th
annual conference of the International Communication Association (ICA) in Montreal. Their
work received a Top Paper award from the association’s Game Studies division.
Researchers say that findings from the study could offer a set of rules that could be applied
to a video game to see if it can make a person creative or lead to creative outcomes as soon
as the game is over.
“We are not looking just at creative games, but what emotional elements of games can
serve as an engine to spark creative thought and new problem solving skills,” said Sundar,
who is also a founder of the Penn State Media Effects Research Laboratory.
He envisions a scenario in which the emotional drivers that video games provide could be
harnessed for creative outcomes, either in a classroom setting, or for corporate decisionmaking.
“The key is to generate emotion,” explained Sundar. “Ideally, a good teacher can energize
the class and make them much more emotionally invested through presentations, guest
lectures, and group discussions. Video games can help achieve that in an already simulated
way.”
Source: Penn State
http://psychcentral.com/news/2008/05/26/video-games-can-aid-creativity/2353.html
Manufacturing Greatness
Linda Rodriguez
Share
Can technology make us the people we’ve always dreamed we could be?

By the time Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was five years old, he could read and write music. Chances are, your
kindergartner isn’t blessed with the same natural abilities. But is it possible -- with the help of some innovative
technologies -- that he or she could be a mini Mozart anyway?
Tod Machover, a composer and professor of music and media at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media
Lab, has created a program that allows five-year- olds -- and people of any age, for that matter -- to sidestep the
difficult processes of learning to read music and understanding tone, pitch, harmony, and melody, and go straight to
the fun part of creating music. The software, called Hyperscore, uses a mouse-based visual interface that employs a
visual language of lines and colors to allow users to draw and paint music. The program is already available
commercially and in schools across the globe.
“It’s an attempt to create an environment where people start from scratch and make their own music,” Machover
explains. No, he says, kids using Hyperscore don’t usually become prodigies overnight. But he insists that’s not really
the point.
If the last century is any measure, the upper limit of human achievement is continually rising, blowing past the
previous world record in a Usain Bolt–shaped blur. And to some degree, it seems to be technology like Hyperscore
that’s fostering this jump in human ability. So as these kinds of technology help individuals surpass what talent and
hard work alone can accomplish, could someone become great without ever really being that good?
The answer, Machover says, is not exactly. “I think most people, given the opportunity and the right context and
maybe the right tools, have far more ability to express themselves and to do original things than (1) they’re given
credit for and (2) than they realize themselves,” he says. “One goal should be to help anyone who has a natural
inclination to a certain kind of thing go as far as they can.”
And that’s exactly what Machover and his graduate researchers at MIT are trying to do. Machover’s lab is littered with
dissected parts of instruments, things that once were instruments, and things that are on their way to becoming
instruments. Near the front door stands an upright piano of sorts -- the entire underside of the keyboard is a thicket of
copper wiring attached to what looks like a battery -- that was created as part of a thesis by Craig Lewiston, a former
PhD candidate in the lab. The piano employs haptic guidance -- physically moving a finger or a hand into place -- to
reinforce what a student’s brain is learning. The keys of the piano are rigged with electromagnets that can be turned
on or off, depending on which note is called for. The player wears gloves that are outfitted with magnets in the tips
and draw his or her fingers to the correct keys.
“It’s a very common technique. … Violin teachers, piano teachers, tennis teachers, golf teachers -- all at some time
use physical guidance,” Lewiston explains, adding that his goal was to automate that guidance. And it works: In
experiments, subjects who used this system learned simple keyboard sequences faster than those who didn’t. While
it’s just a working prototype for now, Lewiston sees this system ultimately having applications in physical- and
cognitive-rehabilitation programs as well, such as those used in treating stroke victims. But he doesn’t see it
devaluing human talent.
“People are afraid that technology like this will destroy notions of talent, that anybody can learn how to [be great]. I
think that’s a bit ridiculous, frankly,” Lewiston says. He believes there’s a more realistic comparison for this kind of
learning technology: training wheels. Much in the way training wheels aid a child who’s first learning to ride a twowheeler, this technology is there to coax you along until, eventually, you’re doing the work all on your wobbly own.
But, of course, no one ever won the Tour de France on training wheels. Ultimately, Lewiston says, it takes a great
deal of practice to become good at anything.
Which brings us back to Mozart. “When you talk about innate talent, jeez, clearly it’s hard to find too many examples
of people who had more,” says Machover, a Juilliard-educated musician himself. “[But Mozart’s] father worked him
like a dog and was very, very clever about teaching him the keyboard and how music worked from a very young age.
So make no mistake, that was not pure innate talent.”
Still, a high tide raises all boats, and Machover’s technologies would help flood the banks. “You want everybody’s
talent to be developed to the fullest extent,” he says. “Even Mozart’s -- you want to find a way that, through the tool,
the experience, and the culture, the person has every possibility to go further than he or she ever expected. But you
want that for everybody.”
A similar discussion is taking place in the world of sports. More and more, technology plays a critical role in athletic
competition, and no one knows that better than Tim Wei, PhD, a professor of fluid mechanics and the acting dean of
the School of Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. For the past few years, Wei has
worked with USA Swimming, an organization that trains U.S. Olympians, using sophisticated flow-diagnostic
equipment to figure out why some swimmers are faster than others. Wei has developed tools such as sophisticated
digital-imaging equipment that can capture, in real time, the flow of water around a swimmer’s body and measure the
force that propels the swimmer. With the feedback Wei gets from these measurements, he has helped great
swimmers, Ariana Kukors and Megan Jendrick among them, shave seconds off their times. But he argues that such
performance improvements are an innate part of athletics -- and always have been.
“I think bottom line is … athletes are getting bigger, stronger, faster,” Wei says. “That seems to be a natural
evolution.”
Of course, some would question whether it is “natural.” Wei believes it is, in the sense that sports technology is using
scientific methods and a better understanding of the human body to improve athlete performance and achieve
maximum results. He relates this boost to the revolutionizing of the high jump in 1968, when Olympic athlete Dick
Fosbury jumped over the bar backward, now a standard technique known as the Fosbury flop. Because of this
improvement, the bar had to literally be raised.
One of the big questions that arose in connection to the 2008 Olympics, however, wasn’t about bodily adjustments
but concerned the effect of technologically enhanced gear, such as slick new suits utilized by the U.S. swim team.
But even that kind of technology, Wei insists, doesn’t replace inherent talent.
“If you put one of those suits on me, yeah, I may go faster, but would I be able to take on Michael Phelps?” he asks
skeptically. “You really have to be at an elite level to start with.”
Wei points out that as athletics have evolved throughout the ages, so has sports equipment; it was only in recent
history, for instance, that men in swim competitions first donned caps, which improve performance by significantly
reducing drag. But, he says, the technology emerging today isn’t going to level the playing field between the Andy
Roddicks and the average Joes. While advancements in tennis-racket technology have enabled top players to serve
at triple-digit speeds -- numbers that were unheard of with wooden rackets -- that doesn’t mean anyone who picks up
a racket can achieve a 100-mile-per-hour serve. “You don’t suddenly have everybody being elite tennis players
because of it,” Wei says.
Despite their disparate fields, Wei and Machover agree that technology likely won’t wipe out talent anytime in the
near future. But it can empower a larger population of piano players, tennis enthusiasts, and the like. Machover says
that he isn’t helping people become prodigies; he’s helping them become active amateurs. And raising the bar for
everyone -- from virtuosos to those who sing in the car with the windows rolled up -- is nothing but beneficial. The
good will continue to get better, and the general populace’s ability to appreciate the good will improve too.
“Right now, we have a culture where if there were a Mozart, you’re not sure that some large percentage of people
would recognize it or know the difference, really,” Machover says with a laugh. “So there’s a real advantage in just
having as many people as possible be open-minded and aware and pushing themselves as far as possible.”
http://hub.aa.com/en/aw/tim-wei-tod-machover-craig-lewiston-wolfgang-amadeus-mozart
3D Printed Organs May Mean End To
Waiting Lists, Deadly Shortages
LiveScience | By Jeremy Hsu Posted: 09/25/2013 8:36 am EDT
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Dying patients could someday receive a 3D-printed organ made from their own cells rather than
wait on long lists for the short supply of organ transplants. Such a futuristic dream remains far
from reality, but university labs and private companies have already taken the first careful steps
by using 3D-printing technology to build tiny chunks of organs.
Regenerative medicine has already implanted lab-grown skin, tracheas and bladders into patients
— body parts grown slowly through a combination of artificial scaffolds and living human cells.
By comparison, 3D-printing technology offers both greater speed and computer-guided precision
in printing living cells layer by layer to make replacement skin, body parts and perhaps
eventually organs such as hearts, livers and kidneys.
"Bioprinting organs for human uses won't happen anytime soon," said Tony Atala, director of the
Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C. "But for tissues we've
already implanted in patients — structures we've made by hand — we're now going back to
those tissues and saying 'We know we can do better with 3D printing.'" [7 Cool Uses of 3D
Printing in Medicine]
From skin to hearts
The difficulty of building organs with 3D printing falls into about four levels of complexity,
Atala said. Flat structures with mostly one type of cell, such as human skin, represent the easiest
organs to make. Second, tubular structures with two major cell types, such as blood vessels, pose
a greater challenge.
Hyun-Wook Kang oversees the 3D printer that will be used to print miniature organs for the
"body on a chip" system.
A third level of complexity arises in hollow organs such as the stomach or bladder, each with
more complicated functions and interactions with other organs. Finally, the fourth level of
complexity includes organs such as the heart, liver and kidneys — the ultimate goal for
bioprinting pioneers.
"With bioprinting, we're approaching it the same way we did with other organs," Atala told
LiveScience. "We're going after flat structures first like skin, tubular structures like blood vessels
next, and then hollow, nontubular organs like bladders."
Regenerative medicine has already proven it can implant lab-grown versions of the first three
types of organs into patients. Atala and other researchers hope that 3D printing's efficiency can
scale up the manufacturing of such organs for widespread use, as well as help make hearts, livers
and kidneys suitable for implanting in patients.
How to print an organ
Atala's group previously built lab-grown organs by creating artificial scaffolds in the shape of the
desired organ and seeding the scaffold with living cells. They used the technique to grow
artificial bladders first implanted in patients in 1999, but spent the last decade building 3D
printers that can print both an artificial scaffold and living cells at the same time — a process that
involves liquid "glue," which hardens into the consistency of gummy candy as it dries out.
Other labs think they can bypass the artificial scaffolds by harnessing living cells' tendencies to
self-organize. That avoids the challenge of choosing scaffold material that can eventually
dissolve without affecting the living cells, but leaves the initial structure of living cells in a
delicate position without the supporting scaffold.
"If you do what we do with putting cells in the right place, you don't start with anything
structural to hold things up," said Keith Murphy, chairman and CEO of Organovo, a startup San
Diego-based company. "For us, the challenge is the strength and integrity of the structure."
Organovo scientists have experimented with building tiny slices of livers by first creating
"building blocks" with the necessary cells. The company's 3D printers can then situate the
building blocks in layers that allow the living cells to start growing together.
Stem cells taken from a patient's fat or bone marrow can provide the 3D-printing material for
making an organ that the body won't reject, Murphy said. His company worked with Stuart
Williams, executive and scientific director of the Cardiovascular Innovation Institute in
Louisville, Ky., on extracting the stem cells from fat.
The tiniest challenges
The ability to print full-size functioning organs depends on figuring out how to seed 3D-printed
organs with both large and small blood vessels that can supply nutrient-rich blood to keep living
tissue healthy. So far, no lab has succeeded in 3D-printing organs with the network of blood
vessels necessary to sustain them. [Photos: Printing Tiny Organs for 'Body on a Chip']
Organovo has begun working toward that goal by experimenting with 3D-printing blood vessels
1 millimeter or larger in width. The company has also built tissues containing tiny blood vessels
about 50 microns or smaller (1 millimeter is equal to 1,000 microns) — enough to sustain a
millimeter-thick chunk of organ.
Even the best 3D printers remain limited when working on the tiniest scales of building blood
vessels and organs. But Williams, head of the Cardiovascular Innovation Institute's effort to
create a 3D-printed heart, agreed with Organovo that the solution involves harnessing the selforganization tendencies of living cells.
"We will be printing things on the order of tens of microns, or more like hundreds of microns,
and then cells will undergo their biological developmental response in order to self-organize
correctly," Williams said. "Printing is only going to take us partway."
Beyond organ implants
For now, bioprinting pioneers hope to make use of even the smallest 3D-printed organs. Atala's
lab recently received U.S. Department of Defense funding for a collaborative project aimed at
printing tiny hearts, livers and kidneys to form a connected "body on a chip" — ideal for testing
possible drugs and the effects of diseases or chemical warfare agents on the human body.
Organovo has already started developing a 3D-printed liver model for testing the safety and
efficacy of drugs. The startup company is also creating cancerous versions of living tissue
models for testing cancer drugs.
The bioprinting revolution could eventually begin to deliver "tissue on demand" within the next
10 or 15 years, Murphy said. That may not fulfill the wildest of organ implantation dreams, but
for many patients, it may prove life-changing enough.
"You'll see a heart muscle patch, a blood vessel for bypass or a nerve graft to bridge a gap in a
nerve," Murphy said.
You can follow Jeremy Hsu on Twitter @jeremyhsu. Follow us @livescience, Facebook &
Google+. Original article on LiveScience.



Gallery: The BioDigital Human
The 10 Weirdest Things Created By 3D Printing
Photos: 3D Printing at World Maker Faire New York
Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material
may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. ]]>
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/25/3d-printedorgans_n_3983971.html?view=print&comm_ref=false
TECHNOLOGY IS WHAT MAKES US HUMAN 2008
http://www.timhunkin.com/a118_technology_is_human.htm
I just finished making a clock for London Zoo last week. Its very ornate and the hour performance is quite
elaborate. Engineers often see me as an artist, and though there’s truth in this, I actually spend most of
my time solving conventional engineering problems. The computer and pneumatics I used on this clock
are principally used for industrial automation. The clock has to be very reliable, particularly because it will
run unattended. It also has to be totally safe, to comply with all the current electrical, machinery and play
equipment standards.
A long time ago I studied engineering science, theoretical engineering. What is obvious to me now, is that
even with the most sophisticated analysis, all engineering design remains an art. Engineering institutions
trumpet their use of theoretical stuff like pure science and virtual reality, but take the intuitive messing
about for granted. What I want to argue is that humans are uniquely talented at ‘thinking with our hands’,
and its wrong to discard ‘intuitive’ engineering as a historical curiosity.
Two years ago a hero of mine called Francis Evans died. He was an engineering professor at Sheffield
Hallam university who had a passion for the history of technology. He is best known for the arch exhibit he
invented - now in almost every science centre in the world. (You use a former to arrange the blocks of the
arch. Once complete the former can be removed and the arch is strong enough to walk over.) But Francis
is a hero to me because of a paper he wrote called ’Two legs, thing using and talking’. It completely
changed the way I think about technology, and about myself.
His idea is that technology isn’t just something outside ourselves, it’s an innate part of human nature, like
sex, sleeping or eating, and that its been a major driving force in evolution. Tool using, along with
language and bipedalism, is essentially what makes us human. The complicated theories used to explain
why we first stood up are largely unnecessary. Our hands simply became too useful for holding tools to
waste them on walking.
The earliest known two-legged ape was ‘Lucy’,who lived about 3.7 million years ago. The earliest ‘human’
was homo habilis, about 2 million years ago. The first civilisations and written language only appeared
about 10,000 years ago, after humans brains had grown two times larger than Homo Habilis’ and four
times larger than Lucy’s. Some very powerful evolutionary advantage must have driven this rapid
increase in brain size. Francis argues it was simply the enormous potential for hand/eye co-ordination and
tool using. Even powerful computers still have great trouble catching balls, one of many skills we take for
granted. Even people who have no interest in technology know they can’t push string or bend glass. They
have an innate sense of materials. Equally, they will pick up a stick and use it to clean mud off their
shoes, to help them walk over rough ground, to shoo off a cow, to grab an apple from a tree, and many
other things, without pausing for thought. This crude and opportunistic sort of tool using, which involves
no craft skills, is so innate we are unaware of it. However, it is creative, and Francis argues it is the origin
our creativity.
He concludes by speculatively linking his idea to the origins of language. Chomski, writing in the 70s,
proposed that all languages have in common elements of their structure, like subjects, verbs and objects.
Francis suggests this structure stems from the way our brain is hardwired to think about technology.
Subject, verb, object comes from ‘hammer, hit, nail’.
He came to his ideas from teaching engineering students about Henry Maudsley, the craftsman who
almost single-handedly invented modern machine tools in the early 19th century. Amongst other things, he
made a screw originating machine. His thread was then used to make the threads on his lathes, which in
turn were used to cut the threads on other companies lathes. The threads on all today’s screws, nuts and
bolts and machines tools are all direct descendants. It was puzzling how Maudsley came to have such
‘clever hands’ and invent his machine tools that triggered Francis’s interest in the origins of technology.
His paper never got much recognition in academic circles. Its scope was enormous, its style was
anecdotal and didn’t fit in with any discipline. I’m sure it would be possible to pick holes in details of his
argument, but broad ideas like this can still have great value. Francis knew Professor Richard Gregory,
the eminent psychologist, and I know Richard agrees that there is a lot of truth in his paper.
I was bowled over by his ideas – they seemed so obvious I wondered why they weren’t common
knowledge. They explained all sorts of things about the way I think. I’ve always enjoyed making things
since I was a small child. My education repeatedly tried to interest me in more intellectual subjects, but
none felt as satisfying as making things. Francis’s theory made this seem perfectly reasonable. I
sometimes find myself making a part in a completely different way than I’d planned without any conscious
thought. Actually faced with the materials and the tools, my hands can just take over. Also I’m unable to
sit for long without finding something to fiddle with. It’s usually not a conscious process, more like monks
handling prayer beads. Francis’s ideas made sense of this, it’s a basic part of our brains’ function,
learning and playing with our hands.
Until I read Francis’s paper, I assumed I was a dinosaur, a throwback to the 19th century. My workshop is
a picturesque thatched barn full of basic wood and metalworking tools, and a comprehensive store, full of
materials and parts. Some of these parts are new, ordered from catalogues, and some are old, from
scrapyards and specialist car boot sales. I work with Graham, an electrician who got fed up working 9 to
5, who now puts his hands to anything. I also have swallows nesting in my stores every summer so I can
never close the doors and my neighbour’s deaf ginger cat who spends his time in his basket in the centre
of the main worktable. The whole place definitely looks like something from another age.
However, Francis’s paper made me question the assumption that my workshop and working methods are
obsolete and persuaded me to write this. I now see my workshop in a totally new and glamorous way, and
my hands on process as even more fundamental than pure science or fine art. I work in this way because
I enjoy it, but compared to the many stages of drawings and prototypes that most machines go through, it
is actually fantastically efficient – Graham and I built the zoo clock in four months. To explain why its so
efficient, I should describe how I work in a bit more detail.
I sketch almost all the parts I make. This sort of back of the envelope scribbling is very different from
precise engineering drawings - I change my mind all the time, scrubbing over the lines again and again.
Drawing like this is a wonderful tool for thinking, for exploring different solutions, rejecting bad ones and
developing good ones. I also use Solidworks, and I can see the power of CAD programs like this, though I
still prefer drawing. Drawing parts is actually very similar to drawing cartoons - scrubbing over lines, trying
to make the idea clear and concise, thinking up endless variations and embellishments.
Drawing parts does depend on experience. I don't remember drawing my machines much as a child, and
when I started making things again after leaving Cambridge I still did very little drawing, working out the
detail by trial and error. There were so many factors, particularly with moving parts, that drawings didn't
help with - will a lever be rigid enough, will a spring counteract a weight, will a grub screw be enough to
hold a pulley on a shaft, will a motor be powerful enough, will it stop quickly enough. The only way to find
out things like this was to try them. There is something intuitively obvious that it must be a good idea to
make use of as many of the senses as possible (smells and sounds can also be very useful in identifying
a problem), but in practice trying everything out is very slow. With experience, it’s much quicker to solve
design problems on paper.
Drawing parts effectively also depends on having the right information to start with. I usually draw one part
and then make it immediately, before drawing the next part. I have a rough overall plan, but the detailed
parts are best built up one at a time. Each finished part informs the requirements of the next. I would find
it very limiting to draw an entire machine in detail before starting to make it – I would have to be much
more cautious, something I recognise in many engineers. Many decisions are still best made by trial and
error, essentially by prototypes. In my workshop, with everything I need around me I can seamlessly
switch from drawing to making a prototype.
My cluttered workshop, particularly the comprehensive stores of bits I’ve salvaged or otherwise acquired,
is also vital to my working process. Browsing through my stores, I often think of a better way of making a
part, and sometimes ways of adapting something I’ve already got. The stores and the tools are literally an
extension of my brain, a physical version of a memory map. Anything I can’t find in my stores will be in
one of my many vast catalogues. Rural sheds may seem quaint but they are no longer cut off from the
world. Modern distribution means I can get anything within 24 hours. My neighbours are amazed by the
constant stream of delivery vans driving past.
Physically making the parts can sometimes be slow and repetitive, but the time is always well worth it.
Firstly, craft skills are satisfying. I’m no great craftsman, but I get more pleasure doing neat welds with my
wonderful TIG welder than I do from any computer program. Secondly I have something tangible to show
for every day’s work, and this is fantastically good for morale the next day, even if the previous day’s part
has to be scrapped later on. Finally, it just gives me time to puzzle out what comes next, or think up
improvements to the part I’m making, or occasionally great ideas for the whole machine.
My hands on method, and ‘thing using’ in general, is so powerful, and such an innate part of ourselves it
seems odd that the developed world is distancing itself from it. Practical skills are certainly considered to
be inferior to ‘intellectual’ skills, though this is simply illogical. Chambers dictionary gives the definition of
intellect as: ‘the mind, in reference to its rational powers’. By this definition my activities in my workshop
are certainly using my intellect. The dictionary has several definitions of an intellectual, but my favourite is
‘a person of superior intellect or enlightenment, often used to suggest doubt as to practical sagacity’. In
other words an intellectual is just someone who is hopeless at anything practical.
Francis often said ‘technology is too good for engineers’, and I sympathise. My Engineering Science
degree gave me the impression that scientific analysis can be applied to every aspect of engineering and
that practical intuitive design is simply outdated. There was no idea that the two might complement each
other. I now see this as snobbery. My public school definitely saw engineering as a subject suitable for
boys not bright enough to do pure science and I’m sure the engineering school at Cambridge was trying
to prove that it could be just as academic as the other schools.
This is nothing new. Engineers have struggled to raise their status ever since the 17 th century when the
word ‘engineer’ came into use to describe the people who built and operated the 18 th century mine
engines. James Naysmith, the 19th century engineer who invented the steam hammer wrote `the eyes
and fingers - the bare fingers - are the two principle trustworthy inlets to trustworthy knowledge in all the
materials and operations which the engineer has to deal with....Hence I have no faith in young engineers
who are addicted to wearing gloves. Gloves, especially kid gloves, are the perfect non-conductors of
technical knowledge'. This quote has particular resonance today, when the wearing of gloves is
becoming compulsory on UK building sites.
Obviously its impossible to design large scale and high tech projects using the methods I use in my shed,
but my experience is that nothing is designed in this ad-hoc way any longer. It is simply considered old
fashioned and inefficient. Certainly the interactive exhibits in science centres, which used to be built by
trial and error, are now mostly designed on paper, and only sent out for fabrication once all the details
have been agreed. Today’s exhibit designers now tend to be science communication graduates without
practical skills, who regard building prototypes as too expensive. Researchers I know at my local BT
Martlesham laboratory, have told me they had seen the similar changes in the way they work. BT
Martlesham – a huge site – is now all software, without a single workshop. Graham, who now works with
me, left his previous job, at an industrial automation company, because he was demoralised that his job
had changed from ‘practical thinking’ to slavishly following drawings. I’m sure there are areas where
things are still designed in a traditional way, but companies keep quiet about it, stressing only the high
tech aspects of their development process.
Today’s engineering students not only have to put up with all the science, but also management theory,
its almost as if today’s engineering institutions want to completely disown their subject. I went to see the
director for education at the Academy of Engineering a few years ago. He was polite, but obviously
thought I was an irrelevant eccentric for suggesting that their perspective of technology might be too
narrow.
The root of problem is that until recently there has always been an abundance of skilled workers educated
with apprenticeships, who had the necessary intuitive practical skills. Most people with these skills spent
their lives doing repetitive and physically exhausting tasks but a minority did the practical thinking for the
‘elite’. Every university and art college had skilled technicians who enjoyed solving problems and teaching
students informally and they never expected any recognition for their work. Every building site and factory
still has skilled workers who fulfil the same role. I’m guilty myself - several things I’ve designed on CAD in
the last year and sent to a local fabricator – have only worked out because Mark, their head welder,
instinctively modified my impressive looking drawings to make them work, as he does with every job.
People like Mark are really bright. I used to teach people like him on an Open University course called
Design and Innovation. My students were mostly practical engineers keen to get a degree. What I enjoyed
most was seeing their confidence grow. Their awe of the tutors and the academic system gradually
disappeared and they increasingly questioned everything they were being taught.
As long as there was an abundance of skilled artisans, no one was going to regard practical skills and
practical thinking as special. But the developed world has changed. There are now far fewer
apprenticeships than university places. Mass employment now comes from the service industries –
catering and call centres, not from manual work. I find it easy to get help with computer problems, but
really hard to find skilled people to help me make things. Until recently I thought the ending of the link
between manual work and mass employment would earn practical skills new respect. Sadly the current
limitless influx of skilled Eastern Europeans to the UK enables us to continue the illusion that practical
skills are cheap, even if its actually further evidence of how our own skills have atrophied.
Schools and colleges are still busy getting rid of their workshops. Academic subjects are more
convenient, they don't require expensive materials and equipment, or pose awkward health and safety
problems, and the government is still set on sending everyone to university. Teachers are often amazed
by the kids, often troublemakers, who flourish during my wife’s making workshops. Lots of bright kids are
just bored by academic subjects. Most kids also now get little encouragement to make things at home so
doing any practical workshop gets more and more difficult. Most kids are now hopeless at using any hand
tool, even scissors.
Accountants obviously have no feel for engineering. A few years ago they persuaded almost every
company to dispose of their ‘stores’ and ‘stock’ as they were unaccountable and old fashioned. However,
this made engineers much less efficient as, instead of getting parts off the shelf, it forced them to buy in
everything and to wait for each part to arrive. This is seriously expensive, compared to the pathetic
amounts raised from selling the stores.
Equally journalists, critics and politicians who principally work with words, have little understanding of the
nature of practical skills. During the frenzy about plumbers pay a few years ago, the media frequently
mentioned that anyone could retrain to be a plumber. This was insulting to plumbers. Practical skills take
many years to master. Engineers, designers and skilled workers are not usually good at championing
practical skills because their talents are non-verbal. I feel vulnerable writing this, I’m much more confident
making things.
The traditional apprenticeship took five years, and was a great way of learning practical stuff. Without the
industrial base Britain used to have, apprenticeships cannot practically be revived on a large scale.
Fortunately it’s not the only way to learn. I never had an apprenticeship – I was born with the ability to
bodge, and my crafts skills are self taught, picking up a lot from Rex Garrod and others along the way. It
was a slow process, 15 years or so before I was able to earn a living from it, but certainly possible. Other
people I know had inspiring practical parents or grandparents and I’m sure there are other ways of
learning I haven’t thought of. Also many of the skills are easier than they used to be, because today’s
tools are both much cheaper and easier to use. In the long term I’m really optimistic, the growing scarcity
of practical skills will eventually give them increased respect and status and they will return in some new
form. It was only after the masses stopped having to grow their own food in the 19 th century that
gardening started to become a fashionable hobby.
It may come to nothing, but I do detect attitudes starting to change. The graphics students I talked to at
the RCA in December seemed desperate to escape from their computer programs. The scientific
community’s current interest in ‘physical computing’ reflects this interest. The popularity of TV programs
like Scrap Heap challenge, though I’m not too keen on them myself, shows there is keen interest in
practical technology. On the US west coast, people who play with technology are called tinkerers, and
there the word has none of the negative, incompetent and unprofessional connotations that it has here.
The West Coast tinkerers magazine called ‘Make’ is now well established with a fabulous annual ‘makers’
faire. The common theme is people playing with technology just for the fun of it. Even Microsoft has
recognised its potential and has a whole (if slightly dull) pavilion.
I’m delighted, this playing technology is very much what motivates me. When I read about the stuffy,
conceptual stuff that goes on in the fine art world or the miniscule detail with which today’s fundamental
science examines the world, I just think how lucky I am to be playing with technology. The potential for
combining traditional engineering with today’s computers is still in its infancy.
Read Francis's complete paper
Other Reading:
'Engineering and the Mind's eye'
by Eugene Ferguson
One of my all-time favourite books, published in 1992, long before the current vogue for 'making'. A
brilliant historical perspective of engineering design, and how much its an art, not a science. It's richly
illustrated, which makes its easier and more fun to read.
'The Craftsman',
by Richard Sennett
Like most of the books, this starts well. The first few chapter have some good insights which were new to
me, for example how without thinking one gets to know exactly how hard to hit a hammer in any situation.
Unfortunately Sennett is a philosopher, so as the book continues the subject gets increasingly tangled
while he debates it with himself.
'The case for working with your hands, Why office work is bad for us and fixing things is good'
by Matthew Crawford
I loved enjoyed his demolition of office work - its very entertaining and powerful stuff. He now repairs
motorbikes, and obviously loves it, but I didn't find anything new in his written appreciation.
'The Mind at Work', Valuing the intelligence of the American Worker'
by Mike Rose
This starts with a great chapter about the author's mother, who was a waitress. It powerfully makes the
case that being a waitress in a small town diner needs a lot of intelligence and quick thinking. He then
looks at other trades, but to me his other observations are less original.
'The Mechanically Challenged Generation'
by Cynthia Reynolds
A campus magazine article which is admirably concise.
http://oncampus.macleans.ca/education/2011/08/29/the-mechanically-challenged-generation/