Excuse the shameless plug. I’m a mentor on the LigerBots.
On Tuesday, May 30 the LigerBots are hosting a FIRST Lego League (FLL) and Jr. FLL Info Night for elementary and middle school aged students and parents. It runs from 7 pm to 9 pm in the Film Lecture Hall of Newton North High School.
These programs are aimed at younger students, aged K-8 and use LEGO as a way to teach about robotics. Jr FLL is for the K-3rd-grade set while FLL is competitive and aimed at the 4th through 8th-grade kids. In addition to building and programming LEGO robots, each year’s themed FLL challenge includes a project for which team members brainstorm and present creative solutions to real life problems. All this is under the umbrella of FIRST, a worldwide program designed to help kids learn STEM skills through project-based learning.
Tuesday’s session is aimed primarily at parents, but kids are also welcome to come and learn more about the FLL program. Current LigerBots students and coaches who have participated in FLL in the past will lead a presentation with general information on FLL as well as on how to start your own team. There will be demonstrations of EV3 robots and people to answer any questions you may have. Email [email protected] for more information.
could you add some info to support the title, “Turning Kids into Engineers” such as:
how many kids have been turned into engineers?
how long did it take for the kid to become an engineer?
did the kids pass the PE on their first try?
what’s the going rate for a kid to stamp a structural drawing (trying to build an addition and need a sign off)?
…or am I taking the click bait title too seriously.
FYI,
As an engineer, let me tell you.. its pretty tough..
The concept that “If we teach more STEM in schools, or we train existing non-STEM to STEM, then income inequality will disappear” is a pipe-dream.
It takes certain personality, perseverance and logical mind to do well. You can’t be a ‘bad’ engineer and there are little use for them (also there is endless supply of bad engineers in India/Asia for 1/10th of the salary)
In the same way that not everyone can ‘draw or paint’ well no matter how they try, not everyone can pick up STEM.
We should definitely encourage it… but does that mean those who just cannot pick it up are “left behind”.. tough luck?
@bugek – for heaven’s sake, no one’s saying that all kids who think of doing FLL are going to become engineers. What is certainly true is that it will expose many kids to building things who have ability and otherwise wouldn’t have any idea that it was so fun. Many of us grow up in families with no one in science/engineering fields, and therefore have no exposure before college outside of the classroom.
I wish I’d had the opportunity to do things like FLL as a kid – among other things, I would have had more success during my first year of engineering school if I’d had the chance to do hands-on activities (growing up in an apartment, the way you fixed things was “call the superintendent”, we didn’t have a car, no tools in the house, no shop classes for girls…) and not felt hopelessly behind everyone else.
Ok..ok…ok… a bit hyperbolic.
But, I know that as a kid I had no idea what engineering was and didn’t see myself in that light. My kids, however, having been exposed to different skill sets through robotics, now see this as a viable career path.
So… yeah, this can turn kids into engineers, if you look at it as a long-term goal.
mgwa,
The highest number of engineering student are from India and China… where most families don’t have a car, robot kits, tutoring etc. Engineering is one of those subjects which the child has to be self driven, to self learn.
As as parent, you need to setup your expectations as to whether your child has the self motivation for engineering
bugek – most of those kids in India and China are from upper or upper-middle class families, who certainly do have all those things. I wasn’t talking about needing to have expensive things – if I’d grown up in a poor family that lived in a house instead of an apartment, I’d likely have learned how to fix things from necessity (my non-engineer ex knows a lot about home repair for precisely that reason). Not to mention, if I’d been a boy I’d likely have had more opportunities back in the days where girls did home ec, boys did shop, and never the twain should meet.
Certainly, some engineers grow up self-driven and I’m not saying FLL will cause every child to end up an engineer. But it may be the first opportunity for many kids to experience the fun of working together to build something, tweak it when things don’t work at first, write code to control the robot, etc.
bugek, as an engineering professor for well over two decades, I have to say that you are not quite correct. The preponderance of graduate students are from India and China though the best come from Iran (a different story altogether). There are however plenty of very capable and successful US students in our undergraduate programs. Indeed demand for entry into US undergrad engineering schools is quite high. And yes, while it does take a degree of self motivation to complete these programs, it is certainly not the case that one must have some outrageous intellectual ability or inhuman inner drive to be an engineer. Both stating and perpetuating such a view discourages kids who may be quite capable but lack self confidence from even considering the field of study; a disservice to them and to the country.
Programs like FLL are on balance a good thing. Still, I believe that K-12 students tend to get too much exposure to mechanical engineering and computer science and not enough familiarity with electrical and chemical engineering. Again, though, this is getting into the weeds.
Elmo,
My comments are in the context of ‘outsourcing’. As a parent, you have to also consider what it means to encourage your child to become an engineer for their career prospects.
Engineers on the very low end of the ability curve are simply getting replaced by overseas engineers, why pay $80k a year, when you can pay $8k a year for the same skill level. This is a very sad fact, sad for incoming students and sad for older engineers too..I’m talking about computer programming which is easily outsourced, I’m unsure about chemical, mechanical outsourcing
Essentially, don’t push your child into engineering if they don’t have self interest or are not really good at logic and math. It doesn’t guarantee a good career path if they end up being well below average, especially 10-15 years from now…
@bugek I have no idea why you think this is about pushing kids into things they don’t want to do.
1) The FLL teams are run by parents (and the LigerBots are run by parent volunteers). This is similar to the sports programs around the city in which parents act as coaches. Sure, we’re building soccer players, but we’re also building rounded humans. Most of the kids I see on these teams are on this voluntarily and actually pull their parents into it. Kids who don’t want to be there (much like soccer, baseball, and other activities) tend not to last.
2) We are spending waaaay too much time on this discussion. If you think your kid will enjoy FLL, then come to the meeting. If you don’t, then there are plenty of other activities (STEM, athletic, arts or anything else) where you can invest your time and energy. Parents who want to share a list can feel free to do so.
@Chuck – I wish FLL had been around for my son! I know it was a wonderful experience for my nephew.
I like your analogy to sports and other activities. No one expected my son to become a soccer player just because he did BAYS, but it was still worth doing for developing a love of sports and physical adeptness, bonds with teammates, and generally having fun. Similarly, I don’t expect all kids doing FLL to become engineers – what I hope is that they’ll learn that science/engineering things are fun, develop skills in problem solving and logic, and bonds with teammates, plus experience the joy of creation. And maybe some kids who wouldn’t have thought they were interested or competent in STEM areas will learn that they are.
Many engineering graduates never actually practice engineering. Just like many English majors never actually [insert whatever English majors are supposed to do in life]. As a practicing engineer myself, the most frequent comment I get is, “wow, engineering is hard” because the college courses can be quite challenging. Many go on to peruse other graduate level work: sciences, programming, medical, management. The really best thing about an engineering degree is people think you’re smart. It’s like meeting a Marine and you instantly think that person is tough.
Now having said that, I wholeheartedly agree that engineering is not just for “smart people” or more specifically the “high achieving academic type.” My grades in high school were below average, but it was a competitive school like Newton. I did fine in college and feel like I understand the concepts better than some people getting all A’s.
There’s always this ongoing discussion of “how much engineering do engineers actually do?” and to that I say very little. But it’s like being a doctor that only performs surgery once a month–you need to be able to perform at a competent level when necessary.
There is also a lot of overlap between electrical and computer engineering and software programming. Any engineering student these days should be learning some sort of programming language. Even back in the day they taught us Fortran but there was such limited application back then.
As for jobs, when you pay an overseas engineer $8k a year, you don’t get the same level of service of what you get in the US. I’ve been to India and China and saw it first hand. It meets the needs for some industries but for auto, aerospace, pharma, defense industries they want a thick paper trail of quality control and the US, EU, Korea, Taiwan, and Japan are the go to suppliers.
Moreover, what we do best in the US these days is innovate and that’s where a good engineer can really shine.
@Chuck. Thanks for posting this. A fascinating and optimistic piece.
@David. Nice comment and it applies to more than engineering. I had problems with high school science, but I’ve developed into an avid reader of all kinds of books about science, particularly those that relate science to environmental dislocations, geology, evolution and Big History.