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02.12

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On “Backscatter: Toys for Budding Engineers” (January 2012)

 I have the same background as Christiansen. In my case, I grew up on a farm where we spent all of our time either trying to keep old machinery running or building things out of what we found and repurposed. I had Legos that came in only basic shapes. I have three sons and they enjoyed Legos for years, but Legos then came with specialized parts and specific instructions, so most of their time was spent searching for the specific part needed to complete a Star Wars space ship per the instructions. No imagination or ingenuity required!

My sons are now all in their 20s. The eldest is a very successful aerospace systems test engineer and the youngest is a junior in college studying civil engineering. I am confident he too will be successful. But I wonder what skills they may lack because they missed the hands-on, imaginative challenges some of us older engineers have had the pleasure of experiencing.

Dennis Desmarais
IEEE Member
Portland, Ore.

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Legos are changing! Just wanted to point out their online 3-D design software that my 10-year-old uses, and very well.

Robert McGaughey
IEEE Member  
Bringhurst, Ind.

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Reading the “Toys for Budding Engineers” article brought me happy memories. Like Christiansen, I grew up playing with Lincoln Logs and an Erector set (which by the way I still have in its original box). Unlike today’s ultra-safe 6-volt motor jobs, my Erector set had a 120-v motor with a two-speed, forward-backward open frame gearbox. Talk about building a crane with lifting power!

As a budding engineer I also had something most kids could only dream of. My parents had a small family-owned hardware store that had every kind of “lab supply” I ever needed. Because of the store’s fertile environment and the influence of an engineer uncle, my older brother and I both became engineers.

Remembering how much fun it was tinkering with this stuff as a kid, about four years ago I decided to see if one could develop something that would spark the interest of today’s kids in science. What I came up with, and actually received a patent for, was a book for teaching young kids the basics of electric circuits. In addition to having pages like a normal textbook, this book also includes electrical parts that can be used to build working circuits on a special page. You should see the look on a kid’s face when they open the book and see parts inside it! We called the idea a KitBook (science kit + science book).

Another engineer and I formed a small company around this idea and have now sold KitBooks around the world. The response we have received from teachers and students has been fantastic. So maybe today’s kids can still be influenced to see science as fun. I still work my normal EE day job and consider KitBooks a hobby.

Interested readers can see the KitBook on our website http://www.kitbook.com.

Ed Basconi
IEEE Member
Johnson City, Tenn.

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I think it’s good that Lego wants to directly target girls with blocks that are made with stereotypical colors for girls so that the parents buy them for them; otherwise parents just don’t seem to think that girls can play with Legos (fortunately my parents didn’t think Legos were just for boys and were also glad they could recycle my brother’s toys with me).

This Christmas season I found that there were no radio-controlled toys for girls; all the remote-control toy cars I could find were for boys. Whey can’t Barbie have her Mustang be remotely controlled? Sadly, if you give a girl a toy that is meant for a boy (because of the colors or because it’s a remote-control car) and the girl likes it, then she must be a tomboy and this is frowned upon in society, because girls are supposed to be feminine. There should be more toys that are advertised for both girls and boys, and placed in the girls’ toy aisle as well, to help spark an interest in engineering in all kids.

Cristina Vigil
IEEE Member
Hanover, Md.

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Lincoln Logs still seem to be popular and are even sold at the big box stores during Christmas: Sam’s, Costco, etc. We just bought two sets for our three-year-old son and six-year-old daughter. Sure, they both like iPads, but they prefer to help dad solder and especially love Snap Circuits. Radio Shack now sells several solder kits and “maker” items. Last week we helped my daughter build a snow-globe from all scrap: pretzel bucket, CPU fan, LEDs, grated Styrofoam, popsicle sticks, and home-cooked play-dough. She soldered the LEDs herself, with some direction, using real SnPb solder, and washed her hands afterwards. Our son can spin on those tiny Erector set nuts himself, and knows the difference between a nut and a screw. He loves to play ham radio and “lectronics.” So all is not lost. Ham radio licenses are at an all-time high. The “maker” scene has emerged, despite the forecast of SMT technology killing hobby electronics, along with hacker-spaces and the various robotics events in schools.

Louis Brown
IEEE Member
Overland Park, Kans.

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I read your column with great interest. I spend a lot of time and energy picking out toys for my son that I won’t mind playing with as well, and many of them are open-ended building and learning toys. With regard to the girls’ Lego, the problem with it is not pink and purple parts. The problem is that the girls’ version of Lego isn’t really a building toy—most of it comes preassembled, and the themes are hyperfeminized. The product doesn’t even look like Lego. It seems to me that this move only serves to reinforce the idea of “boy” toys and “girl” toys, and that’s a shame because girls can and do enjoy Lego unless they are led to believe it is not something girls are supposed to enjoy. I think Lego would be better served to release some sets that aren’t necessarily based on movie licensing, or that maybe have more focus on cooperative and less violent play. They could create “Nature Explorer” sets, or fantasy sets with elves and fairies and dragons and unicorns and Pegasuses with riders, and the sets would sell to boys and girls as well as to the significant adult Lego buying/building market. I should also mention the K’Nex education sets. They are wonderful and K’Nex parts fully interlock with Lego parts. The rollercoaster set is awesome.

Kathy Yelshin
IEEE Member
Odenton, Md.

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On "Career Focus: Non-Engineering Careers for Engineers" (January 2012)

I was a network and computer security engineer for the last 15 years or so, first at the University of Illinois and later at Qualcomm in San Diego. My final project at Qualcomm was the System Security Specification as well as the Network Architecture Specification for the Qualcomm/Technicolor Digital Cinema System.

By the time those designs went into final acceptance, I was burned out. Security is all about making other people's jobs harder as a secure system is hard to code, hard to manufacture, etc.

My stock options had vested, times were good, so I bought a Porsche and went back to school to get my veterinary medicine degree (Illinois 2007). I now run my own relief business filling in for other veterinarians on vacation, maternity leave, continuing education, etc. I'm licensed practice in California, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, and Virginia.

My engineering background helps mostly in assisting practices with their computer and network issues. My life is a lot richer since making the change, I make a decent living, and get to directly help people and their animals.

Paul Pomes
IEEE Member
San Diego, Calif.

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I just want to say that I absolutely loved this article! As a college junior who wants to do intellectual property law, I sometimes feel that no one ever pays attention to those of us who aren't interested in industry or graduate school.

Rachel Green
IEEE Student Member
Houston, Texas

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