Scientists and Engineers as Heroes

One Hundred Fiftieth Post: Scientists and Engineers as Heroes

In Make vol. 04 Dean Kamen commented on how much sports heros are celebrated in our culture with many young people having the dream of becoming one. Meanwhile it is not realistic in becoming one, but it is realistic to become a scientist or engineer. There is a lot of truth to this statement. Sports, while important teaching values such teamwork and winning attitude, are often more focused on than academics in both college and high school. Science offers an outlet to be creative and think of new ideas. It helps students understand the world and resolve problems to improve their world.

But there are already lots of students whose heroes are scientist. I believe they are called nerds. LOL (Only kidding. I was a nerd.) There has to be a balance between letting the student excel in what they are interested in such as sports and letting them dream, while at the same time, encouraging them to have many interest and learn a variety of subjects to find what it is they like to do. If science or art was introduced they just might like these subjects. There are a lot of heroes in these fields even though sports stars in the media more often. But in other media such as comic books scientists are the heroes. Just look at Star Trek.

Another short idea I was playing with is to take a game like Magic the Gathering Online and make it possible for players to design and draw there own card. Then the community could rate the card on originality, how interesting it is, how nicely it is drawn, etc. Then you could trade and sell custom cards for points. I really don’t know how the game works, but it is just something to think about. The same thing could apply to video games with players modeling custom characters. The main problem is the challenge in programming such a cool statistic system. But, it is just an idea.

May the Creative Force be with You