Hello, World! | Takeoff
It all starts here. We’ve begun our journey…but what will we become? That’s what I’m going to talk about in our first-ever post on the Encouraging Engineering blog. Why we exist - and where we are headed.
First off, a little more about me and our roots.
I’m Vaughn, a 10th grader at Piedmont High School in California, and a Life scout . I have a passion for material and mechanical engineering and sciences, computer science, and spend an (arguably) unhealthy amount of time doing mechanical work on FRC team 8033. As our team grows, one of the things we must do is recruit more and more students every offseason - and this leads into the reason I decided to create Encouraging Engineering.
So it’s time for a bit of a rant…I’m going to try and recreate my thought process throughout the recruiting period of the 2022 season. Let’s see how this goes.
First off, why is it that so many think they must be born an engineer or “have an engineer’s brain” to learn engineering and STEM skills? Especially for underrepresented groups, if I had to guess, I’d say this is the single largest barrier to entry for programs, teams and classes that venture into engineering ideas. When recruiting, we get so many students who come in hesitant, worried that they somehow don’t have the skills or the smarts to problem solve like engineers. I have to think that if this is the case for so many that still had the confidence to come in to check out the team, there must be an immesurable number of students that saw our signs and immidietely turned themselves away. This was the first major revalation.
This got me thinking a lot about how we could make our posters, publicity, and recruitment strategy enforce confidence in the abilities of anyone interested. But really, it led to another question.
So if all these people are being turned away by their own thoughts and predepositions, then what exactly is it thats different about those students that feel confident? In other words, what leads people to be natural, methodical and logical problem solvers by their high school years?
To answer this question, I had to think back to my elementary school days. I’m incredibly grateful for having the opportunity to do weekend projects when I was younger, a lot of that due to my father, but I also have to give credit to resources like the Make magazine and Grant Thompson (Rest in peace, an incredible person in all regards) who gave me tons of ideas when it came to what sorts of things to try, and even if I didn’t intend to build them, just to watch the videos or read the articles and learn what worked and what didn’t. This point is key. Resources like these, combined with my fortune to have the resources available to me, were what allowed me to turn my curiosity into real problem-solving skills because they taught me how things work, how to solve problems using the engineering method, and gave me endless examples to try with my own hands. After thinking through all of this, I came to a conclusion on this dilemma:
Everyone has the inherent curiosity and logic skills to solve engineering problems, however we must build our confidence with these skills over time, because without a system behind it, raw curiosity will only get you so far. Importantly, this confidence-building must start as early as possible, and with the goal both hands-on projects, and understanding problem solving theory. When these factors come together, one will have confidence in methodical problem solving, and therefore engineering problem solving, by the time they are in high school, and maybe even earlier.
This was the very first eureka moment.
Phase two:
Armed with this realization, which I’ll call “guidance toward problem-solving”, I started thinking a lot more about how I could recreate my childhood Make Magazine and Grant Thompson indevours, without the garage full of expensive (although admittedly, mostly from yard sales) tools and materials I was grateful enough to have access to. Thus, the birth of the idea for Encouraging Engineering. For now, this organization will be a source of ordered and organized projects, instructional videos, and interesting articles targeting everyone in 3rd-6th grade. I’ll cover many of the projects that I and many other students on my FRC did when we were younger, as well as the concepts behind the engineering method, and even a taste of more advanced and specific mechanical and material engineering concepts, if one wants to go that far with it. All of this in due time, and I can’t wait to see what people do with it. Of course, there’s only so much to talk about now; we still have to get our full learning journey plotted out and start uploading it. Aside from that, there’s just one thing: I want to do so much more with Encouraging Engineering.
Where are we headed?
I suppose this is the best way to conclude our seedling post on our blog. For an organization like this, the possibilities are truly endless, so I want to set sail for a few key goals in the near future:
Start doing, filming, and documenting monthly projects that everyone following Encouraging Engineering can do themselves and learn a thing or two from. These will be special and fun, each one packing a unique bit of conceptual engineering. Of course, I want to put a lot of thought into every one of these, so I’ll make a big landing post here when I finish the documentation for the first one.
I want to get more people involved! For now, it’s just me, Vaughn, sitting behind a computer screen writing up all of this, along with organizing all of our instructional content and at-home projects. There’s no reason for it to be just me, though. We’re starting with tons of info from all over the internet for all of our content, so why not all kinds of people, too? If you want to write up quick projects or teach about the engineering method to a broad audience online, contact me!
Finally, and this is the big one, I want Encouraging Engineering to host free, in-person workshops doing projects and teaching problem-solving skills, face-to-face. This is so daunting in so many ways, but I’m writing it here, right now: I will make this happen, open to everyone, 100% fun, and 100% free. Launching the first of these in-person meetings will be the subject of my Eagle scout project, and I’m sure also of many blog posts, but this is all to come. Stay tuned!
Thank you.
In some ways, I can’t believe I’m starting this right now; in others, it feels only natural. The fact I have the support to make this happen is by no means a coincidence; I have so many people in my life to thank for getting me to this point, both in my leadership and engineering skills. I only hope this organization is a way to give back, once and for all. So if you got this far, thanks for reading.
I hope to see you soon, whether in a blog post, or in a classroom full of curious students.
-Vaughn
