Cosmos - A Celebration of the Life of Carl Sagan and Other Scientific Connections

By Stephen Portz

I was invited to attend the Library of Congress Dedication of the Carl Sagan Collection in November 2013. The collection was being donated to the Library for the enjoyment of future generations who dare to dream. Many of the prominent astrophysicists and scientists of the day were there due to their association with Sagan and to honor his legacy as a scientist. 

His widow, Ann Druyan presided over the meeting as many of the artifacts came from her collection as well as from Hollywood star Seth MacFarlane. Sagan had remarried and Ann was his third wife.  She evidently was much younger than Carl as her father is still alive and was also in attendance.  She, along with Carl developed and produced the original hit TV series “Cosmos.” She was very kind, I bumped into her afterwards quite unexpectantly and had one of the most genuine conversations. She asked who I was and what I was doing in DC and gave such a wonderfully kind wish to me for the educating of our nation’s children.

Early drawing of ideas for space exploration by a youthful Carl Sagan

The astrophysicists are a harden lot.  They marched up several who were students of Sagan back in the day.  They reviewed his pale blue earth montage but this time with a twist. The presenter who was his former student and had worked on the Cassini probe, showed the audience for the first time the footage from behind Saturn looking at our earth through its rings.  It was spectacular:

Photo of Earth taken from behind Saturn by the Cassini Probe

Since the technology is so advanced from Pioneer and Voyager days, the image is super high resolution and they could keep zooming in on it until you could see our earth and its moon. It was stunning! 

Earth and her moon photo taken from the Cassini Probe

Perhaps Carl Sagan’s greatest legacy was the time that he devoted to touching individual lives – students, youngsters, colleagues, anyone who reached out to him, was cherished and appreciated and usually rewarded with personal letters and time with him – with which he appeared to have been very generous. Considering this was before email and computerized everything, and most correspondence was by typewriter through the mail, it was a significant devotion of time.

Unfortunately, the day was also quite politicized.  Beware when people start talking about how politicized science has become, because they are then about to start politicizing it themselves.  Talking about how our ancestors climbed down from trees, how people who don't think like they do are superstitious, uneducated, and “sitting on the other side of the aisle.”   I didn't know this, but apparently the theories of evolution and anthropogenic global warming are now to be treated with the same veracity as the Law of Gravity, because the scientists mocked people who believed one and not the other.  The president of the United States was once again quoted to the great amusement of the audience that we didn’t have time to convene a meeting of the “Flat Earth Society.” Many of the scientists presumed to put words in Sagan’s mouth how, if Carl were here, he would be putting all the anthropogenic global warming naysayers in their place.  The meeting took a very interesting turn into almost a funeral-like quality and the scientist that spoke about our ancestors climbing down from a tree (Carolyn Porco), then spoke to Carl Sagan “wherever he was” and told him “we love him and miss him” - as if his intelligence is still prowling around the cosmos.  It seemed rather ironic to me that an educated person would be trying to talk to someone that has been dead for 17 years.

In dealing with mortality and the concepts of a hereafter, Ann has gone on record about losing Carl and the reconciliation process for her:

“When my husband died, because he was so famous and known for not being a believer, many people would come up to me—it still sometimes happens—and ask me if Carl changed at the end and converted to a belief in an afterlife. They also frequently ask me if I think I will see him again. Carl faced his death with unflagging courage and never sought refuge in illusions. The tragedy was that we knew we would never see each other again. I don't ever expect to be reunited with Carl.”

Her sentiments reflect such a “tragedy” of thought and expression. It makes me think of the scientific mind and the juxtaposition of having such intelligence in dealing with corporeal matters, but being so limited in dealing with the spiritual ones. With no intention to demean scientists, like the ones paraded out during the dedication, in the same way that they in fact demeaned people of faith, I would submit the following ideas to consider.

With recent discoveries in dark energy, dark matter, and the Higgs Boson Carrier Particle there is so much

Meeting Dr Harrison Proctor - On the Higgs Boson discovery team from CERN

that we do not know or understand and scientists in their greatest capacities are still at a loss to explain about our universe; Even when they do, and usually with such dogmatic confidence, it is sometimes difficult to accept it all because of their poor track record. I was priviledged to meet Dr Harrison Proctor from the CERN Lab that discovered the Higgs Boson Particle.  The comment that he made referring to Dark Matter and Dark Energy which presumably fills the universe was that "scientists call things that they don't understand "dark".

I often view many scientific pronouncements of geological time and things that must have occurred millions of years ago with some amusement as we do not have the ability to describe exactly what may have occurred at a crime scene only a few hours before or know for sure what the weather is going to be tomorrow much less be able to make these definitive declarations. Throw in metaphysical concepts of inter dimensional existences, space/time relationships, and singularities in the universe, I would say that one could make a pretty good case that there is room even SCIENTIFICALLY, for the existence  intelligent designer/first cause.

It is almost as if some of these good scientist friends are missing the ability to perceive the world around them in any other way which cannot be measured and quantified, much as an individual on the autism scale has difficulty discerning social queues. Or a person with color blindness not being able to differentiate between colors. Using a scientific metaphor for these scientists that struggle with spiritual concepts that seem so difficult for many of them to grasp seems apropos here.

Albert Einstein once famously compared the understanding of his theory of relativity with having a walk with a blind friend:

Not long after his arrival in Princeton he was invited, by the wife of one of the professors of mathematics at Princeton, to be guest of honor at a tea.-Reluctantly, Einstein consented. After the tea had progressed for a time, the excited hostess, thrilled to have such an eminent guest of honor, fluttered out into the center of activity and with raised arms silenced the group. Bubbling out some words expressing her thrill and pleasure, she turned to Einstein and said: "I wonder, Dr. Einstein, if you would be so kind as to explain to my guests in a few words, just what is relativity theory?"

Without any hesitation Einstein rose to his feet and told a story. He said he was reminded of a walk he had one day with his blind friend. The day was hot and he turned to the blind friend and said, "I wish I had a glass of milk."

"Glass," replied the blind friend, "I know what that is. But what do you mean by milk?"

"Why, milk is a white fluid," explained Einstein.

"Now fluid, I know what that is," said the blind man. "But what is white? "

"Oh, white is the color of a swan's feathers."

"Feathers, now I know what they are, but what is a swan?"

"A swan is a bird with a crooked neck."

"Neck, I know what that is, but what do you mean by crooked?"

At this point Einstein said he lost his patience. He seized his blind friend's arm and pulled it straight. "There, now your arm is straight," he said. Then he bent the blind friend's arm at the elbow. "Now it is crooked."

"Ah," said the blind friend. "Now I know what milk is."

And Einstein, at the tea, sat down.

The problem with things spiritual is that if we do not have comparisons in the corporeal world to relate them to, the person of intellect will often view them as foolish superstitions. This story of Einstein is instructive, because he was teaching on many levels here. He was using tongue in cheek humor to relate the difficulty of the task at hand in trying to explain a concept that really had no common frame of reference with which to base an explanation. Hence he took his poor blind friend on a convoluted path from milk to swans using the common to explain the unknown. By doing this his friend would then understand something that they had no prior experience with, and now know and understand it at the same level that he understood things common to him - which of course, was absurd. This is the same challenge we face when explaining faith known principles to the scientific community.

It reminds me of a meeting that I attended at a planetarium where an eminent scientist from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory was discussing interplanetary missions that NASA was involved in. After many fascinating stories such as findings of water on the moon and Mars, he took some time to discuss the Kepler telescopic instrument that was designed to look for planets orbiting around stars in our galaxy.

The way the instrumentation on the Kepler telescope works is that it “watches” stars and when a star blinks it then presumably has had something cross in front of it. The crossing body is then thought to be a planet orbiting the star in its own solar system. When NASA scientists first proposed the Kepler mission, the premise was that this project would be able to detect other exceptional solar systems in the galaxy that were like ours. The notion that there were large numbers of stars which had planets orbiting around them was not even considered because the hypothesis was that our solar system was fairly unique in this respect. What they have since concluded through Kepler, is that it is very common for stars to have planets orbiting around them and it is now understood, as far as our galaxy is concerned, that it is more the rule than the exception. There are billions of planets orbiting around stars in the universe. With that knowledge scientists are now not only looking for planets orbiting stars but they have now refined the search for planets that are in the “Goldilocks” sweet spot in orbital placement. Those planets may have the potential for life as we understand it.

With those interesting conclusions, he started talking about the Hubble Deep Field Imagery Project. How scientists found the darkest spot in the night sky, presumably devoid of any light from any stars and took a long exposure photograph in that region. To their surprise they discovered that the region was not only populated with stars but galaxies of stars, more than could be counted. He showed Hubble photos of what looked like a field of stars but upon magnification turned out to be many varieties of different kinds of galaxies as numerous as the aforementioned stars.

Hubble Deep Field photo

With that, the scientist stated: “now doesn’t that make you feel small and insignificant?” This statement totally took me by surprise because I was at that time having an exactly opposite and profoundly spiritual experience. I felt wonder and awe that God’s creations go on forever and yet he is mindful of the fall of a sparrow. And I know he is mindful of me because I have felt his spirit in unmistakable communication. It puts a totally new perspective on the Cosmos, which was the name of Carl Sagan’s masterpiece series that first raised the consciousness of so many to the wonders of the universe…

 

 

Understanding STEM Education in a SMuh Education World

By Stephen Portz (’13-’14 Albert Einstein Fellow)

Our President has identified the STEM initiative as a critical National Security Issue – “if we do not improve the quality and quantity of science, engineering and math students as well as the general technological literacy of our workers, our country will lose significant quality of life and world leadership standing.” (Moravec, 2010).

Our Nation's STEM Initiative - the curriculum integration
of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math instruction.

As a career and technical education (CTE) teacher with little familiarity teaching in anyway other than STEM, the STEM movement has been intriguing to watch. The purpose of our CTE programs is to prepare students for the workplace. To this end each program involves integrating the academic curriculum and delivering instruction in the context of how the skills are used in the world of work. Since I am also an engineering technology teacher, which represents two of the four spokes on the STEM wheel, I believe that I have a really good grasp of what STEM Education is supposed to be. That said, part of me was excited about the STEM movement because it is as if the entire world is waking up to what CTE teachers and industry experts have always known - that students learn best when academic skills are taught contextually in integrated real world applications, and not simply as discrete skills. Unfortunately, the other part of me is now perplexed, because as I look around, I am not seeing practitioners that seem to understand what STEM Education is supposed to look like.

 

Can You Pass Me Some More SMuh Please?

STEM Education without the T-Technology, and E-Engineering portions is not STEM, it is simply SMuh. There is no hierarchy in this model, so none of these subjects is more or less important than the other. If any one of the elements is missing it is not STEM. While methods of delivery may differ from district to district, the principle is unbending; if you do not treat STEM as an integrated system it is not STEM (Sanders, 2012). If your instructional strategy is not integrating science, technology, engineering, and math as a cohesive unit, it will not have its desired effect and all you will have is SMuh. Which begs the question, if the STEM movement calls attention to the problem but then does nothing to break from the traditional academic math and science model, what good is it?


I think the reason many districts are struggling with the implementation of STEM is they are unclear what the technology and engineering pieces are supposed to look like. Many believe that covering the Technology piece is simply about giving their students iPads or laptops to use in a science or math class.

Few leaders forming district, state, and national education policy have much experience with Engineering, so implementation there is lacking. Technologies are the products of engineers. The work of scientists is to make discoveries in their questioning of WHY. The work of engineers is HOW to take scientific discoveries and design them into products for economic and societal benefits. It stands to reason then, if our students are not engaging in engineering activity that leads to technological creation, they are likewise not actively involved in STEM Education.

The Essential Importance of Integration

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) speaks highly of the importance of content integration. The fact that a major portion of the standards addresses the need to recognize crosscutting concepts is both affirming and condemning. It is affirming in that it recognizes how powerful it is when our students make connections with other concepts, applications, and disciplines. It is condemning in that by raising the notion of crosscutting concepts to such a level of importance in the standards, it is an admission that previously it was not being done.

NGSS gives further encouragement for the ideas of subject integration: “Students should not be presented with instruction leading to one performance expectation in isolation, rather bundles of performances provide greater coherence...also allow(s) students to see the connected nature of science and the practices.” (NGSS, Volume 1, 2013)

Are Science Teachers Qualified to Teach Engineering?

While the NGSS recognizes the prominence that engineering must have in the curriculum to satisfy the President's charge, its solution is to have science teachers teach engineering in addition to their science curriculum:
“Science and engineering are integrated into science education by raising engineering design to the same level as scientific inquiry in science classroom instruction at all levels and by emphasizing the core ideas of engineering design and technology applications.” (NGSS, Volume 2, 2013)

Air Rockets activity with after school program students 
at the Richard Byrd Library - Alexandria, VA

As far as this model goes to support STEM, the fact remains that science teachers are very poorly equipped to teach engineering: “Few science teachers have had even one engineering course. The faculty members who prepare future teachers...have limited experience with engineering education. Thus the current generation of teachers has not been prepared to incorporate engineering into science teaching”... and, “Even if science teachers did have appropriate preparation in engineering education...the science curriculum is already filled. There is insufficient time to do justice to current science topics, much less add a new layer of new requirements.”(Bull and Slykhuis, 2013, p. 1).

Another concern with the “have science teachers teach engineering” model is the imperative that whoever conducts engineering instruction have a background in the requirements of industry – how is engineering used in the workplace? “Studies are converging on a view of engineering education that not only requires students to develop a grasp of traditional engineering fundamentals, such as mechanics, dynamics, mathematics, and technology, but also to develop the skills associated with learning to imbed this knowledge in real-world situations.”(NGSS, Volume 2, 2013, p. 16)

Since a traditional science educator would have gone through the typical teacher preparation program in college, it is unlikely that many would have had any industrial work related experience. How is a science teacher in this situation going to be able to effectively demonstrate and explain the work of an engineer when they do not understand it and have never done it themselves?

If NGSS seeks to raise engineering design to the levels of scientific inquiry, are science teachers prepared to teach engineering design? A significant tool of engineering design is a 3D parametric design program. With this application, engineers are able to virtually model designed parts and assemblies, return to past iterations, run finite element analysis, animations, mechanical, thermal, and fluids simulations all from a desktop. (Hayes, Goel, Tumer, Agognino & Regli, 2011).

To neglect the preeminence of 3D modeling in an engineering toolkit and reduce engineering design to a notion of experimental trials in the fashion of scientific inquiry does grave injustice to the discipline:
“Design thinking represents a sophisticated ability to scope problems, consider the alternatives, develop solutions....and optimize products iteratively using STEM skills.”And, “Engineering design is difficult to learn, teach, and assess, and is studied less than scientific inquiry.” (Katehi, Person, & Feder, 2009).

Without instruction in engineering design and its associated tools, our students will not be able to access emerging desktop manufacturing and the forthcoming revolution in industrial design, innovation, and entrepreneurship. “Engineering experience and understanding is required to take advantage of emerging desktop manufacturing capabilities, many teachers do not fully understand engineering, engineering habits of mind, or design thinking.” (Berry, Bull, Chiu, Lipson, Xie, 2013).

STEM Models to Consider

I have long held the belief that the STEM crisis in our educational system did not happen despite our best efforts at educating students, but was more likely caused by it. Our silo thinking philosophy of academic instruction, which leaves many students behind, is not founded in research in how students learn best or in the requirement of real-world application. Turning back to an academic model as the solution to the problem that was most likely caused by this mindset is flawed circular reasoning. Clearly, if the challenge to effectively teach engineering education is beyond the scope of what science teachers can perform, what should be done?


The T and E of STEM are the applied portions. Just as in college, many science courses cannot be adequately covered without the lab course which is taken concurrently with the academic course; so to, for STEM to work it must include opportunities for hands on engineering design work creating technology. One way to do this would be require a T and E lab course in concert with math and science offerings. By having a dedicated engineering course of study along with their academic courses, students learn to ply their academic and technological skills in the context of how they will be used in the world of work.


Similarly, career academies with an engineering or technology focus gather student cohorts and establish a school within a school small learning community. History has shown that if you desire to build and accelerate growth and capacity in an area, one of the best ways to do it is to gather it as a community. STEM career academies accomplish this by attracting students with similar career interests and structuring their academic program around the interest. STEM academy students share common academic teachers along with an engineering or technology teacher. This teaching team coordinates curriculum and instruction to align with the students shared career interests to focus the instruction where it will be of the most usefulness and interest to the academy students.


Some examples of how STEM career academy teams can do this are with thematic units that are cross curricular. Students studying Greek and Roman civilizations in history class can find intersections with the literature of those times in language arts class as well as the civil engineering and weapons technologies in their CTE class.


As previously mentioned, a significant barrier to the integration of engineering and technology in math and science classes can be with the math and science instructors themselves, if they cannot communicate to their students how the skills they are teaching are utilized in the world of work. This is where industries can help with teacher externing and summer industrial fellowships.


A vocational business exchange program (VIBE) matches teachers with industry and grants up to 80 hours of paid placement with a local industry. I participated in just such an experience with NASA when their electrical engineering group was renovating the Space Shuttle Launch Control Complex. At the time it provided me with a state of the art experience in computer aided design and the use of smart schematics. In another example, STEM teachers are provided with industrial work experiences during their summer break. This model provides a win, win, win, solution as businesses and industry does their part to enhance education and provide for a strong pipeline of future talent; Teachers benefit by better understanding how academic skills are used in the workplace and they realize enhanced credibility with their students as they relate the experience back to classroom practice; but the real beneficiary are the students who can then make better connections between the classrooms skills and future jobs.


There are very successful models across the nation that integrate academic instruction with an engineering CTE program to create effective STEM instruction. Such programs replicate engineering design activity through the use of project based learning (PBL) which naturally integrate STEM subjects: “...the STEM PBL challenges provide students with authentic real-world problems captured and re-enacted in a multi-media format designed to emulate the real-world context in which the problems were encountered and solved.” (Massa, DeLaura, Dischino, Donnelly, Hanes, 2012).


Anytime a teacher makes a requirement for students to learn, collaborate, or produce a project using the appropriate technology, they leverage the learning gains by not only providing learning content in a compelling way, but in the context of how it is used in the world. As we do this, we provide our students with the skill set for tomorrow’s workplace. That is the true charge of the STEM movement.


When we give our students opportunities to make connections with academic content and real-world technological applications, our students will learn better, our industries will have a skilled workforce, and the President's charge will be answered.




Stephen Portz is an Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellow, placed with the National Science Foundation. Prior to this appointment, he worked for Brevard Public Schools in Florida where he has taught Engineering and Technology for 25 years. Sportz.einsteinfellow@gmail.com


Berry, R., Bull, G., Chiu, J., Lipson, H., Xie, C. (2013). Advancing Children's Education Through Desktop Manufacturing.

Bull, G. and Slykhuis, D. (2013). NTLS Design Challenge: Science & Engineering Strand.

Hayes, C. C., Goel, A. K., Tumer, I. Y., Agognino, A. M., & Regli, W. C., (2011). Intelligent Support for Product Design: Looking Backward, Looking Forward. Journal of Computing and Information Science in Engineering, 11(2), 021007.

Katehi, L., Pearson, G., & Feder, M. (2009). Engineering in K-12 Education. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

Massa, N., DeLaura, J., A., Dischino, M., Donnelly, J. F., Hanes, F., D. (2012). Problem Based Learning in a Pre-Service Technology and Engineering Course. American Society of Engineering Education.

Moravec (2010) “Obama: Education is a National Security Issue.” Educational Futures. Jan 7, 2010.
Next Generation Science Standards: For States, By States. 2013. Volume 1: The Standards. Achieve Press Inc., Washington DC.

Next Generation Science Standards: For States, By States. 2013. Volume 2: Appendixes. Achieve Press Inc., Washington DC.

Sanders, M. (2012). Integrative STEM Education as “Best Practice,” International Technology Education Research Conference, Queensland, Australia.

How to Give Students the Skills to Access 3D Printing, Desktop Manufacturing, and Industrial Design:

Industrial Design – The Impending Renaissance

By Stephen Portz and Joshua Aurigemma

In the 1980’s three technologies converged to create a revolution in the printing world.  These technologies were the Macintosh computer with a WYSIWYG feature, the laser printer, and postscript fonts.  Each of these innovations played significant roles in providing for what we now know as desktop publishing.  Giving the masses the tools to create their own published works forever changed the graphic arts, printing, and publishing worlds.

Similarly, the product design trifecta of 3D design software, rapid prototyping machines, and open source electronics, are creating a perfect storm with which to launch a new age in desktop manufacturing and industrial design.

Photo 1 - "LovLit" Candle Prototype by Industrial Designer Joshua Aurigemma

The Parallels are Unmistakable

Desktop publishing technology not only altered forever the way publishing took place, but it created a boom in the study and practice of graphic arts.  Most companies at that time had entire departments devoted to promotion, product advertising, print layout, and publication; the nature of the work demanded it because it was mostly a manual activity with significant levels of artistry involved.  With desktop publishing, most of the nuances of the craft could be automated through software applications and high quality computer printers.  As a result, anyone with these desktop technologies could learn how to publish and many did.  Across the nation, graphic arts programs were expanded and desktop publishing courses were offered in most every high school in the country.

Many industry leaders are predicting a similar event taking place in the field of desktop manufacturing.  The technologies have aligned in much the same way for 3D manufacturing that they did for desktop publishing.  In a recent edition of “Make” magazine, 23 commercially available desktop 3D printers are reviewed.  Most of them carry a price tag of less than $2000, but some are available for less than $1000.  The simple fact that the “Make” magazine did not even exist ten years ago and that Maker Faires numbered over 100 conferences on five continents across the globe this past year, speaks to the exponential growth of the movement.  For comparison’s sake it should be noted that one of the first widely available commercial laser printers, the one that essentially launched the desktop publishing revolution, cost almost $7000.  With the price of a suitable computer and publishing software, a desktop publishing workstation back in the day cost over $10000.  Today, a quality desktop manufacturing workstation can easily be had for less than half of that cost.

Photo 2 - Afinia 3D Printer (Courtesy Afinia Corp)

With greater ease of access to the tools of manufacturing, the entire world of inventing and product ideation will enter a new age of development.  How should we prepare our students for this?

The Elements of Desktop Manufacturing 

3D printers allow users to take virtual creations of solid objects or assemblies of objects and “print” them in successive vertical layers of extruded molten plastic.  An additive design, 3D printer, or rapid prototyping machine is much like the marriage of an ink jet printer and a hot glue gun but with the addition of the Z axis.  The computer directs the nozzle of the printer to extrude a layer of plastic material, moves the nozzle to the next layer height, and does it again. 

There are other types of 3D printing technologies, but this method is by far the most common and the least expensive for would be desktop manufacturers.  The computer system is so ubiquitous it barely merits a mention in passing, but any system used must be powerful enough to effectively drive the 3D design modeling software.  Common programs include SolidWorks, Inventor, Solidedge, PTC Creo and others.  Each program is very graphics intensive and requires powerful processors and graphics card support.  These professional programs are expensive and boast a steep learning curve, but there are free programs available for younger students and entry level users.  These include Sketchup, 123D Design, Blender, Tinkercad, OpenScad, and others.  While any three dimensional drawing program that allows you to output to an .STL or similar format file will do, the work of an industrial designer highly favors a professional drawing tool.

 

Open Source Electronics

The development of open source electronics has in a similar fashion put the design of the control aspects of the product in the hands of the consumer.  Formerly accessible only to electronics manufacturers with expensive printed circuit board design and printing equipment, open source electronics control options give the would be inventor the ability to design, construct, and prove sophisticated prototypes that use computer processing control.

 The Arduino microcontroller is one such solution.  With the footprint of a credit card, it allows a developer to control an electronics system by using 14 input/output pins.  Control software and programming is uploaded to the flash memory via a USB port.  Additional and specific functionality is provided to the Arduino by stacking commercially available boards or “shields” to the microprocessor.  Arduinos are used extensively in robotics design, perhaps most notably in the popular quadricopter UAVs.

  Photo 3 - Raspberry PI (Image Courtesy of Raspberry PI Foundation)

 Another open source option for electronics control is the Raspberry PI.  Created about the same time as the Arduino, the PI is not just a microcontroller it is an entire computer in miniature. The Raspberry is powered by a 5 volt micro USB connection. It has a 700MHz processor with a half Gig of SDRAM.  There are video out ports for HDMI to drive a monitor with resolutions up to 1920 x 1200, but there is also a composite RCA to allow connection to a television set.  A 3.5mm jack is provided for audio in/out as well as an Ethernet port for networking and two USB 2.0 ports.  For storage, the Pi uses SD cards with the operating system preinstalled. 

 

Industrial Design and Industrial Design Education

With the convergence of these technologies, the foundation is set for a renaissance in industrial design.  Just as access to the tools of publishing created an explosion of desktop design and publishing, along with an educational movement to support it, so too will desktop manufacturing necessitate instruction in the elements of product design.

Much like engineers, the work of an industrial designer is to balance design criteria with constraints and trade-offs to optimize solutions; But with a twist, industrial designers seek to add value by increasing utility and significance of products.  To do this, designers use the intersections of desirability, feasibility, and viability to arrive at the optimum solutions to a product idea.  What are the dynamics of each of these qualities that makes such a difference in good designs?

Desirability – Does the product have value to the consumer?  Obviously this quality is relative as winter clothing doesn’t have near the appeal in Florida that it has say in Minnesota.

Feasibility – This is the engineering aspect of the design.  It may have enormous merit and potential to the consumer, but do we have the ability to make it, make it so it works, and make it so lasts?

Viability – Are we able to make the product with the means and methods that will allow us to realize a reasonable profit margin? What is the competition doing?  Can we add value to the market? What is our benefit to risk analysis?

Inventing by using the Industrial Design Process

With these tools of product design and development our workforce is empowered to evolve from the aspiration of being job seekers to now being job creators. But what is the process of product design and creation?

 

Photo 4 - StoryBoarding a Product Idea  (Image Courtesy of Joshua Aurigemma)

Effective designers are quick to observe societal needs.  They use their multidisciplinary knowledge of people, business, and materials, manufacturing methods, engineering and aesthetics to create things of value. 

A common technique in product ideation is storyboarding.  Storyboarding allows the designer to flesh out the intricacies of the problem as well as demonstrate how the solution may be refined.

If there is parity between a recognized need and a product that fulfills the requirements of that need, the designer moves on to refine their design.

  

Photo 5 - Product Form and Function Workup  (Image Courtesy of Joshua Aurigemma)

(The genesis for an electronic candle idea emerges from the metaphor of a growing affection as a light which glows brighter, or the obverse effect, with the candle dimming.  This prompts an idea for adding value to the design by using a Bluetooth system driven through the cellphone network. The technology allows for a matched pair of candles to synch with one another across the world to communicate affection and let the other candle’s owner know they are being thought of.  One owner picking up and holding the candle will cause their light to glow brighter.  The other owner’s candle gradually synchs with the original to also begin to glow brighter).

 

Photo 6 - Refined cross-sectional design of a product idea (Image Courtesy of Joshua Aurigemma)

Every designer has a different style. To characterize all industrial designers and reduce their activity to a step by step cookbook process oversimplifies the art.  There are layers of consideration which draw upon the designer’s expertise all along the way that challenge the premise of their designs.  Again, like engineering, industrial design is a true iterative process and the best designers are able to dispense with unworkable solutions quickly and intuitively.

Photo 7 - Early electronics circuit design of product (Image Courtesy of Joshua Aurigemma)

Which comes first?

Is the electronic schematic determined before the designer starts proto boarding or does the designer document schematically what the circuit ended up being after trials on the proto board?  Does the designer know what the shape of the product will be before they draw it up, or do they draw it up and then learn what the shape will be?  The answer to both questions is “yes”.

Photo 8 - Prototyping the Product Circuit (Image Courtesy of Joshua Aurigemma)

Changing accessibility in the industry

Desktop manufacturing will automate many of the heretofore skilled manual tasks in much the same way as desktop publishing systems automated previous publishing industry methods.  Much of the work of industrial design is prototyping.  This is usually conducted by laboriously hand cutting forms in wood, shaping foam materials, creating molds and castings using wax, plaster, silicone rubber, and plastics.  The artistic aspects of this process were formerly a barrier to career entry as an industrial designer.  Now, much of this art is eliminated by using the 3D printer - rapid prototyping machines.

 Photo 9 - Refined Product Prototype (Image Courtesy of Joshua Aurigemma)

How can teachers prepare students to be industrial designers?

Teachers can help students by giving them familiarity with modeling and design tools.  Giving our students abilities with these processes adds powerful tools to their repertoire toolkit. In this way students begin to view problems as potential products that they can see themselves creating.

What exactly should be in our student’s toolkits?

The world is 3D and our students need to visualize and design in 3D.  Give students the ability to represent ideas in 3D by teaching them to use a 3D drawing program.  Get an inexpensive 3D printer and require students to design and produce 3D output using the device.  Teach basic electronics with simple proto boards.  Then teach them electronics control methods using a Picoboard, Arduino, or Raspberry PI and require them to do a project.  Use a simple programming language like Scratch or Lego Mindstorms to learn to write a custom electronics control script.  Teach them the skills of craftsmanship using traditional shop tools.  Introduce a unit on inventing and innovation and require a product from each student.

We are entering the age of mass entrepreneurship, where small companies with the ability to respond quickly to consumer needs will be rewarded.  It will be an age of so called “black collar” workers, so named after the peerless Steve Jobs and his characteristic black turtleneck.

Desktop manufacturing has the potential to change our educational purpose from helping our students to become job seekers, to helping our students to become job creators as they learn the principles of industrial design and go on to create innovative products on their own.

 Photo 10 - Testing the Product Prototype (Image Courtesy of Joshua Arigemma)

Stephen Portz is an Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellow,  Prior to this appointment, he worked for Brevard Public Schools in Florida where he has taught Engineering and Technology for 25 years. sportz.einsteinfellow@gmail.com

Joshua Aurigemma is a freelance Product Developer with a B.S. of Industrial Design from
Georgia Institute of Technology. He embraces 3D CAD, desktop manufacturing and open-source
electronics to develop products. joshua.aurigemma@gmail.com

 

Maker Movement is Significant for our Time...Do YOU Understand Why?

I had the opportunity to debrief my experiences in Washington DC with two assistant superintendents and three program directors from our district. After presenting my newfound credentials and talking about many educational initiatives that they should expect to see in the near future such as computer science and coding literacy, engineering design in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), and the Maker Movement.  I was floored when one of them asked me what the Maker Movement was.  It was then that I realized that I was not in Washington DC anymore.  I had been extremely fortunate to have spent the past year in the educational epicenter of innovation, to have experienced and learned what I had, and I have since come to realize that sometimes people don't know what they don't know.

The power to create our own learning experiences...

This young man from California got turned on to Making by attending a local Maker Faire and learning about the Arduino microcontroller.  The Arduino is an open source electronics controller which allows developers to create custom computer controlled devices.  An example of Arduino processing is the popular quadracopter drones which have an Arduino brain.  This young man (Quin), goes on to show how he tricks out his garage with a 3D printer and laser engraver and trains other students on how to use the equipment to create projects. Quin then presented his passion for Making to the local school board and won over the superintendent with the amazing potential that the movement has for student engagement...

Check out his YouTube video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9lvW6ZY-Gs

White House Maker Faire

This past June the White House Office of Science and Technology hosted the first ever Maker Faire at the White House.  President Obama made mention of the Faire several times during the lead up to the event. As members of the  Einstein Fellows class of 2013-14, several of us worked very hard to present at the event and took the time to delve deep into the Maker Movement. In anticipation of the event The White House issued a Maker Fact Sheet detailing all the initiatives across our nation.  The work of the Einstein Fellows was featured in the White House Press Release and Facts Sheet.  Perhaps if district administrators had access to these proceedings they would better understand the significance of the Maker Movement so I am providing it here.

White House Maker Faire Fact Sheet:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/06/18/fact-sheet-president-obama-host-first-ever-white-house-maker-faire

Maker is really a reaction to our country loosing capacity to build things ourselves and desperately trying to reclaim our roots in industrial arts, manufacturing, and the simple human need to create and to learn and practice craftsmanship. I had the opportunity to address this disparity with the Deputy Director of the Office of Science and Technology while at the Koshland Science Center's "Making Education Great" Summit:

How Can Maker Work with CTE?

While the Maker Movement is exactly what the doctor ordered and 3D printing is on fire in educational technology circles, the deployment of this movement has been haphazard and fails to tap a ready source of trained industrial talent in our CTE programs across the nation.  The DOE and ITEEA really need to get together and write into new legislation or tie into Perkins language to address this disparity.  Since Tom invited my suggestions, I obliged, here is my question to him and my invited recommendations to the White House OSTP:

“We have seen the systematic dismantling nationwide of our school shop programs in past decades and are now waking up to the realization that we have a generation of youth that do not know how to make things. We have reduced the capacity of our country to train youth in the art and delight of making and have unfilled jobs in the manufacturing sector as a result.  To the extent that we need a maker movement to energize our country to the benefits of making is a sad commentary ... 

Stephen Portz - Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellow

... and hopefully is not too little too late.  As an early adopter of 3D printing – I installed the first 3D printer in our district over ten years ago; I have watched the maker movement with great interest.  Despite the traction the maker movement is getting I am concerned about sustainability.  What is this administration's overarching plan to revitalize our nation's career and technical programs by funding strategies like Perkins, workforce development, as well as curriculum development initiatives to support making so that our students have the training to support this effort and keep the momentum going?"

Your response made some great connections with the movement, the challenges that manufacturing is experiencing with the staffing of skilled workers, and the potential to bundle the effort with CTE programs nationwide.   You mentioned in your response that you would be interested in knowing what some of my ideas are that the Department of Education and the CTE community could do to further the effort. 

Thank you for this invitation, here are some of my thoughts.  I believe the maker movement has the potential to bridge the gap that was left in our country with the demise of shop programs but there are still barriers to establishing a maker habit of mind that are not being addressed.

1. Barriers - Maker Needs a more formal educational approach

If you look at many maker initiatives, the movement is very informal, sometimes even haphazard – if we get a 3D printer for our classroom… if we designate a maker space in a library… if we hold a maker faire in our community… or if Tech Shop comes and opens a shop in our town… then our students will understand how to make.  If I can draw upon the analogy that the President used when comparing Tech Shop to a gym membership – just because a gym is in town doesn’t mean the community is going to get fit.  None of these activities by themselves will create a generation of makers without the formal education piece to provide training on how to be makers.  In many ways the skills of making today far surpass the shop skills of yesterday, with their band saws, welding, and auto shop.  Making today involves students learning 3D CAD Modeling because it is the gateway to accessing desktop manufacturing.  3D design is a complex engineering skill that requires very high order processing.  Likewise are the skills of design for manufacturing and industrial design for product development.  As a result, I find there is a void and that no one seems to be suggesting any formal basic skills training for our students to support making in the 21^st Century.

2.       There is precedence in history that we can use to benefit the movement

 

You often hear policy people talk about the democratization of manufacturing and technology.  Essentially what they are saying is that with open source design, desktop manufacturing, and electronics control, more and more people are able to access the tools of product design and innovation.  With this access, they can be makers, they can invent, they can be entrepreneurs, and they can be job creators and not just job seekers.  The convergence of technologies which are facilitating the desktop manufacturing and maker movement bear striking similarity to the revolution in desktop publishing which occurred during the 80s and 90s. But just as giving access to the tools of desktop publishing didn’t make people graphic artists or make for good print copy, giving students the tools of desktop manufacturing is not enough to turn them into makers. It was not until we created and implemented an associated CTE training program in graphic arts that we began to raise a generation of students that could do work in the media.  A strategy to develop curriculum and deploy programs to teach product design, mechatronics, and desktop manufacturing is essential because the tools of making are much more sophisticated and daunting than the tools of desktop publishing ever were.

3.       There are powerful social and behavioral aspects at play here.  

 

It is interesting to me that the equipment that you would find in a Tech Shop or FabLab are many of the same kinds of tools you would see in a CTE technology education program today – where they exist.  A 3D printer for rapid prototyping of design ideas is the modern equivalent of school shop prototyping which was accomplished in the day using machine tools.  In fact, the 3D printing process also goes by the term “additive manufacturing.”  But the Maker Movement is so hip, avant-garde, and has a trendy college prep look and feel about it that most people do not even associate it with manufacturing – which traditionally has been the purvey of CTE programs.  A considerable factor that played into the demise of school shop programs was the rise of college prep programs and the notion that “CTE programs are alright for other people’s kids, but not mine, mine are going to college.” This notion even permeates the policy speak of today where Maker Movement is compared to the “chemistry set” of bygone days.  The notion here I presume, in that period of time, the children of professionals played with chemistry sets, while the shop kids tinkered with automobiles in the family driveway. Interesting that I do not remember any great engineers, architects, product designers, or entrepreneurs indicating that the secret of their success was that they had a chemistry set when they were a kid.  I do hear them mention a lot about having access to legos, erector, and other types of building sets.  Steve Jobs referenced his Heathkit, but not a chemistry set.  I suspect that a chemistry set plays better with the college prep crowd and does not scare people into thinking their children are actually learning about manufacturing or getting involved in a CTE program.  I raise this issue because one, I see this as a significant psychological barrier to infuse making into our nation’s consciousness and two, providing the movement with the necessary educational scaffolding  through CTE programs is essential to properly train our students.

4.        The Maker Movement, without a formal education strategy, will widen the gap of the “haves” and “have nots” even more

 

The notion of placing maker tools in public spaces like libraries is interesting to me because I personally would like to see more access to them for myself and for others.  But if the idea is that somehow providing access is the same as providing accessibility, the strategy is ill conceived.  Living in DC this year, my family and I have been amazed at all the informal educational experiences that are available here.  Having moved from the Orlando area, the fact that these experiences are all free boggles the mind.  So if you are looking for evidence to support the effectiveness of informal educational strategies, one needs to look no further than the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.  It is perhaps the informal education Mecca of the world. Yet in the shadows of this most amazing educational resource are some of the most educationally impoverished children in our nation.  The fact that the equivalent of an informal education PhD is free and less than a mile or two away for many of these children has done little to help them and should put to rest forever the notion that informal education is effective for all student populations.  This is the difference between access and accessibility.  Clearly, informal education is only effective for students that come from backgrounds that value and support learning in this way.  Similarly, hoping for family or community support to assist were both is lacking is not tenable.  Students who report success in informal making relied on support from a community of likeminded makers, mentorship, and access to tools in the home.  Due to these circumstances, students that tend to benefit most from informal education in the making movement are already well supported in their learning activities.  So again we see that without formal training strategies in our schools, informal education is no silver bullet for many of the populations we would hope to benefit most from this effort.

Solutions

 

1.       Working closely with manufacturing and industry, develop new CTE programs of study which focus broadly on the skills of making and not just industry specific skills.  For example we should teach students how to prototype potential products using a variety of methods, CNC machining, 3D printing, vacuum forming, plastic and foam molding and modeling, etc… so we are teaching the concept of prototyping and not just a skill specific process.

2.       Train and deploy a new generation of CTE trained professional educators with an emphasis in teaching desktop manufacturing, industrial and product design, and mechatronics.

3.       Revitalize CTE programs nationwide; gear them up with the charge of 21^st Century making.  Place these maker spaces firmly in the center of our schools as hubs for all academic programs and not as the place where non college prep students go for their programs of study. The activities and products of these CTE programs should be the focus of our STEM effort.  The E (Engineering) and T (Technology) parts of STEM need to be recognized as the true purpose and integration ingredient of our student’s academic skills – just like it is in our industries.  Make these school maker space hubs accessible after hours for students to work on personal projects of passion - the essence of innovation in our society.  Giving students the formal training and access to the tools of innovation will greatly accelerate the technological development in our country.

These are my thoughts and ideas.  If I can be of any further help, please let me know.

Sincerely,

Stephen Portz