Homer Hickam told us that the initial portrayal of the good folks of Coalwood, W. Va., in October Sky was originally full of hillbilly stereotypes about coal miners. He urged director Joe Johnston to drop the stereotypes and show the dignity of work above and below ground. After all, it was the people of Coalwood who made it possible for Homer to pursue his dreams. (Incidentally, Hickam said Chris Cooper, who played Homer's father, received little or no direction during filming. He just ran with the character and, accurately, for my money, portrayed the tensions between father and his independent-minded son.)
This is such a great thing. Not only promoting STEM, but making it cool is a great thing. I wish I would have had this kind of motivation and outlet back when I was a kid. It is more important now more than ever for kids to get into it.
Beth, I agree. You can expose kids to STEM actitivies everyday just by bringing a bunch of techno-goodies to their classrooms and letting them explore the wonders of science and technology by teardown activities. I promote STEM by visiting my kids' classroom and discussing careers in electrical and computer engineering with hands-on demos using the Basic Stamp kits. I'm also getting involve with Innovation Generation by providing project excerpts from my new book titled "Learning Electronics with Arduino" coming out 5/23/12 for kids to do cool projects over the summer break as well!
I'm not surprised to see the throng, given the celebrities (Homer Hickam, Bill Nye and an astronaut) at the event. I still say that Hickam's book inspired the best science movie ever made. It may be the only Hollywood movie in which a bright young science student is portrayed as a normal child.
Sometimes you don't even have to bring your kids to these tech fests to get them exposure to the fun side of STEM. My kids did that hydrogen experiment on the dollar bill in school and brought it home to amaze their parents. It was pretty cool.
What a great way to expose kids to all the possibilities of technology and engineering in ways that seem creative and fun. More of this kind of hands-on experience and exposure to engineering's "rock stars," as you say, does volumes to whet our kids' appetites for STEM careers.
For 3D printing to make the jump from rapid prototyping to manufacturing, engineers will need to find easier ways to move products from their CAD screens to their printers.
Gigabit and PoE are two networking technologies moving ahead in tandem as industrial users power remote Ethernet devices such as IP security cameras at 1,000 Mbps over existing CAT5 cable.
New versions of BASF's Ecovio line are both compostable and designed for either injection molding or thermoforming. These combinations are becoming more common for the single-use bioplastics used in food service and food packaging applications, but are still not widely available.
From Dell / Intel® New Paradigms in Design Work Scott Hamilton, vertical market strategist for Dell Precision workstations, 5/2/2013 5
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I've been using workstations for more than 10 years and love finding ways to get more performance from my system. With demanding professional applications that require more power each ...
A lasting memory from my first job as an engineer in an auto assembly plant is standing on hard concrete at six in the morning, vending-machine coffee clutched in hand, listening to ...
For industrial control applications, or even a simple assembly line, that machine can go almost 24/7 without a break. But what happens when the task is a little more complex? That’s where the “smart” machine would come in. The smart machine is one that has some simple (or complex in some cases) processing capability to be able to adapt to changing conditions. Such machines are suited for a host of applications, including automotive, aerospace, defense, medical, computers and electronics, telecommunications, consumer goods, and so on. This radio show will show what’s possible with smart machines, and what tradeoffs need to be made to implement such a solution.
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