What Obama Could Say to Students

Later today, the President will make a "Back to School" speech to America's K-12 students. The White House released the text of his remarks earlier.

The speech mentions several careers to which students might aspire:

Maybe you could be a good writer – maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper – but you might not know it until you write a paper for your English class. Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor – maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or a new medicine or vaccine – but you might not know it until you do a project for your science class. Maybe you could be a mayor or a Senator or a Supreme Court Justice, but you might not know that until you join student government or the debate team.

And no matter what you want to do with your life – I guarantee that you’ll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You’re going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You can’t drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You’ve got to work for it and train for it and learn for it. [Emphasis mine.]

Generally, a fine message. But it doesn't jive with Obama's desire to reinvigorate the American manufacturing sector. In naming Ron Bloom as his senior counselor on manufacturing policy on Monday, he said Bloom is "going to help us craft the policies that will create the next generation of great manufacturing jobs." [Emphasis mine.]

What about the next generation of great manufacturing workers? Tomorrow's machinists, carpenters, welders?

As it turns out, welders are in short supply in this country. The American Welding Society reports the average age of American welders is in the mid-fifties. AWS anticipates a potential shortage of 200,000 welders by 2010. That figure excludes self-employed welders.

Compare this with the oft-reported nursing shortage, which a recent Johns Hopkins Magazine article reports is gone but will return soon. According to a nursing professor at Vanderbilt, the average American nurse is 43.8 years old. Buerhaus predicts a shortage of 260,000 nurses by 2025.
The average welder is more than 10 years older than the average nurse, and we'll need more welders sooner.

In fact, few of the careers Obama mentions are among those in short supply. In May 2009, Manpower, Inc. released the results of its fourth annual Talent Shortage Survey.

The top 10 jobs American employers are having difficulty filling:
1. Engineers
2. Nurses
3. Skilled Trades*
4. Teachers
5. Sales Representatives
6. Technicians
7. Drivers
8. IT Staff
9. Laborers
10. Machinists/Machine Operators

Worldwide, it's a similar picture:
1. Skilled Trades*
2. Sales Representatives
3. Technicians (primarily production/operations, engineering or maintenance)
4. Engineers
5. Management/Executives
6. Accounting & Finance Staff
7. Laborers
8. Production Operators
9. Secretaries, PAs, Administrative Assistants & Office Support Staff
10. Drivers

* Manpower notes:

In this survey, Skilled Trades refers to a broad range of job titles that require workers to possess specialized skills, traditionally learned over a period of time as an apprentice. Examples of skilled trades jobs are: electricians, bricklayers, carpenters, cabinetmakers, masons, plumbers, welders, etc.

Of course Obama is right to encourage students to follow the careers they're drawn to. And I don't expect him to mention only the jobs that are in high demand amongst employers.

But Obama is missing an opportunity. He could have started to remove the stigmas that help shroud manufacturing careers from today's brightest students: that training in the trades is "just something to fall back on"; that welding is dirty work, unfit for an educated young person; that there's no future in being a plumber or an electrician.

Obama says students will need the "problem-solving skills [they] learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS". He could have also mentioned the problem-solving skills required to, say, plumb a house, or diagnose engine trouble.

There's much work to be done to revive the manufacturing sector, especially small manufacturers. Expanding the MEP would be a great start.

But if this is to be "a country where things are made" in the next twenty years, I hope it's today's kids who'll be doing the making.

Conversation with a Shop Teacher

I was talking to a welding teacher earlier tonight. He teaches high schoolers all day, then adult students like me at night.
I've talked to a lot of shop teachers. This one said something especially frank.
"It's hard to get anyone to take me seriously around here. Even the administration."
He explained that this was why he'd gotten a Master's, and he said it in a way that made me empathize.
His tone belied a contentious relationship with his colleagues, one that found him fighting for resources, for funds, for respect for being a Teacher, dammit, not the ringmaster of some sooty circus.

Why Bikes are a Great Way to Learn About Technology

It goes like this. Someone finds out that I'm a "bike guy". They learn that I build up bikes for friends, or they see bike tools in my apartment, or they read this blog.

Sometimes they figure that bikes are all I want to work with, all I'm interested in, just bikes.
The reality is almost exactly the opposite. In learning about bikes, I've learned a lot about other things. Because of what I know about bikes, I know a little about a lot of other related things.

Bikes are a great way to learn about technology. They're accessible, but they're challenging enough to be interesting. Getting started is easy, but learning the finer points of bikes means learning about all kinds of technology.

- Industry standards for bicycle parts are a mixed bag, to put it mildly. Pick up a random bike part, and its threads might be based on a metric, an imperial (SAE), or a totally bike-specific standard. Some parts are ISO, some JIS; Raleigh even had its own threading standards. Then there's the Italian, French, and Swiss standards. A few parts are left-hand threaded. People who know bikes are comfortable switching between all these crazy standards. Inch vs. metric? Try Italian vs. Swiss. Pop quiz: What's the difference between ISO and JIS bottom bracket axle tapers? Ask Sheldon

- Many of the essential technologies of modern life are present in every bike. Bearings, chain drive, brakes, control cables, and spoked wheels, to name a few. People who know bikes are familiar with all these subsidiary techs that drive so many other things. They've taken apart bearings, regreased, and reassembled.

- For under $300, you can buy a set of tools that will allow you to maintain damn near any bike. That kit doesn't have everything (notably a truing stand and workstand). But good luck overhauling your motorcycle with $300 in tools.

- Similarly, information about bike repair is easy to find. http://www.sheldonbrown.com/ is 90% of what you need.

- Steel bike frames are pretty unique in the realm of steel fabrication. The tubes are thin-wall--down to .3 mm in some cases. They can be joined in a lot of different ways, each requiring advanced skills. A frame needs to be straight, so low-distortion joining is key. The frame has to interface with all those funky bike part standards mentioned above. And the frame has to fit the rider, so there's a big human-machine-interface problem to be solved. Building bike frames is challenging, but part of the reward is that most other fabrication jobs are straightforward in comparison.

- Weight is always a factor with bikes. As Keith Bontrager said:

Strong. Light. Cheap. Pick two.

This isn't just true for bikes, though. As designers and fabricators, bike people are acutely aware of the trade-offs inherent in working within these constraints.

- There are bike parts made from a wide variety of materials, from brass to carbon fiber. Bike people have experience with the interactions between these materials. They know that aluminum seatposts tend to get stuck in steel frames because of galvanic corrosion.  They know that blue Loctite or beeswax can keep a threaded part from coming loose.

Why else?

Why the Shop

I spend a lot of time in a shop. I consider myself a shop person.  But most of the people in my life are not shop people, with only a few exceptions.

I often think about how to relate to non-shop people about the shop. "Why do you spend so much damn time down there?", they ask. "You always come home filthy." "What's so exciting about screw threading of all things?"  "What's the point of endlessly tinkering?"

It's especially difficult to discuss, perhaps, because the shop is not generally a place I go to accomplish a specific thing. I might go there to work on one problem but end up working on the shop itself. Sometimes the tool I need is broken, so I spend an afternoon making a new one, or fixing the old one. The work is often non-linear; I work on what needs to be worked on.

Not many places are ambiguous in this way. A kitchen is for cooking; a classroom is for learning; a theater is for seeing shows. A shop can be for doing anything, and its purpose can change momentarily.  A shop is for working on things, but that includes the shop itself and everything in it.

Working in a shop can have a wonderfully self-reflexive feeling, of constantly re-examining the tools, the process, the shop--even the people in the shop, including yourself.

A shop is a place where all variables are in flux. A mill, for example, is so versatile that it could be used to produce a copy of itself*. When you're standing in front of a mill, the question is not "What is possible?" but now "What do I want to do?".
In the shop, the only limitation is you. It's up to you to decide what deserves your time and effort. It's a nice metaphor for growing up.

But why machine tools and screw threads and such?  What dispassionate things to study and to have strong opinions about.

There's a feeling I get after I've been using a lathe for a while. I don't mean any lathe, I mean one specific lathe, because each one is a little different. When I first start using it, I take my time flipping every lever, making sure I don't make some catastrophic mistake. But over time the lathe and I come to an understanding. I learn her idiosyncrasies, and she lets me know when I'm pushing her too far. After a few weeks, I'm flipping levers left and right. I know every control without taking an eye off the workpiece. I like to use the words sensual and intimate in describing this feeling. It's a little like raising a dog.

My old machining teacher liked to refer to using a machine tool like driving a car, e.g. "How do I drive this daggone mill?".  For my part I think of it more like flying an airplane.  It's more complicated than driving a car, but the possibilities are greater.  Pilots are an elite, sometimes cocky bunch, much like machinists.  Among those in the know, what they do inspires awe.

Machine tools are anything but cold. It honors me to include myself in a tradition that bears the mark of so many great people, including a few of my ancestors. It brings me closer to a history I don't fully understand yet. It gives me something in common with everyone who's ever made something well.

It's by learning to apply tools well that we have advanced our human condition. Our survival depends on knowing how to manipulate our world with tools, and on continuing to pass on that knowledge.

And by the way:
Besides being essential to everything we do, screw threads are, in one sense, a culmination of all human experiences. Their development is the result of many tiny decisions made by many people over many centuries. The most recent decisions were based on older decisions, which were based on yet older ones. That legacy goes back to the earliest humans. And without exaggerating, it can be said that screw threading standards have made fortunes and lost them.

In fact, every modern tool is a permutation of some simple, primitive tool. It was when we first started using these simple tools that we became technological--that we began a period of ever-increasing improvement upon what came before.

*This is theoretically true, but it's not something that happens often. It would require almost fantastical quantities of metal and time.  Some of the tools used to make machine tools are friggin' huge.

Technical Education for a Younger Set

I've blogged a lot previously on technical education, focusing largely on my own age demographic. I'm 23, so the discussion has generally centered on undergraduate and post-graduate studies.

But, really, I started learning about this stuff at a very young age. This included *a lot* of time building stuff out of LEGOs (especially TECHNIC) and taking every electronic device I found around the house. Didn't you?

So what about technical education for small children? Should we be letting little kids get hands-on with fire, knives, cars, power tools, and other implements of de-/construction? How do we do that? Shouldn't we be worried about them cutting/maiming/burning/killing themselves?

Gever Tulley tackles these issues in a great 9-minute talk called Five Dangerous Things You Should Let your Kids Do. Tulley founded The Tinkering School, a "summer program which aims to help kids builds the things they think of."

Tinkering School photos via Tulley's Flickr.

Found via the superb AIDG blog

College Visit: Appalachian State University

I am in Boone, North Carolina, today to visit Appalachian State University, and particularly their Appropriate Technology department.

I'm scheduled to visit a renewable energy class, meet with the professor afterward, then meet with an admissions person.

In the afternoon I'm headed to Raleigh for a visit with Andrew Stewart from the [Frame] list. Photos to come.

Having done a few of these college visits as a prospective transfer student (RISD, VCU, John Tyler Community College, Hampshire), some guidelines have emerged:
- Ignore the official tour and information session. These tend to be filled with general info on the whole school (easily found elsewhere), and are usually geared toward high schoolers and their parents. They also consume valuable time that could be spent getting a more hands-on look.
- Get a map of campus ahead of time. Figure out the basic lay of the land so you know how to wander around. Find the dining hall, admissions, the student commons, the relevant academic buildings, and whatever else interests you.
- Spend your time with professors and students. These are the people you'll potentially be working with. They know the real deal, and they'll tell you, if you play your cards right.
- Set up a meeting with at least one important professor. Sit in on an interesting class if possible. Do this with plenty of advance notice.
- Get a good look at the facilities and the shops. These say a lot about the priorities of the school, the department, and the professors.
- As my sister says, the most important question is: "What are your graduates doing now?".
- Eat at a place you'd likely eat at as a student. Ditto coffee and beer.
- Buy a t-shirt. And a postcard.
- Send thank-you notes to the people who helped you. Better yet, send them something small that they seem to need.
- Come across as eager, enthusiastic, driven, and all that, but don't over-do it. Make an impression. Be memorable. This isn't hard--not many prospective students do this kind of visit. I am finding that 90% of success in academia (anything?) is due to good name recognition (a.k.a. networking).
- Even if this school won't work out, you can still learn a lot during your visit. These professors probably know their counterparts elsewhere. They definitely know the big names in their field. And they probably like helping enthusiastic students.

Hampshire College and a Maasai Rap Video

Earlier this spring I spent a day visiting Hampshire College (wiki), a small liberal arts college in Amherst, MA.

Hampshire is an interesting place, because every student designs their own degree program. There are foundation courses in the first year, then two years of study in an area of the student's choosing. Finally, in the third year, the student completes a big self-directed project, somewhat like a graduate thesis. Also, there's no grades, just student evaluations.

Yes, they do play a lot of frisbee.

But the most interesting thing there is the Lemelson Center for Design, part of their School for Interdisciplinary Arts. The Center is funded mostly by grants from the Lemelson Foundation, named for prolific inventor Jerome Lemelson.

The Center has great facilities, especially for metalworking, and especially for framebuilding and other bike-related work. The shop is unusually clean and well-organized, with lots of funky, shop-made tools. They have an Anvil Journeyman frame jig as well as a full set of reaming/tapping/facing tools. A course on bike frame construction is taught every fall. They are especially geared toward technological solutions for disabled people. Here's some student projects:




--

While observing the "Appropriate Technology in the Developing World" class, I saw some students brass brazing a bike cart based on the Community Bike Cart Design plans (by Aaron Wieler, a Hampshire grad). They were using Harris black flux, which actually seemed to work OK despite the high temperature, although I would've preferred Gasflux Type B blue flux.

So after returning to Richmond, I sent a few sticks of Gasflux C-04 and a little bottle of blue flux up to Hampshire. Today I got this email from the Appropriate Tech professor:

This morning I was searching online for a blue colored flux that I used several years ago and really liked. I couldn't find it. So it was really strange when I found your package outside my door several moments later, with a sample of blue flux, and instructions on where it was from. Are you a metal shop elf dressed up as a regular seeming guy?

The big story here is that I managed to seem like a regular guy.
But it also made my day to have helped the folks at the Lemelson Center.

--

The Lemelson Foundation also recently awarded a grant to KickStart, a non-profit that developed the MoneyMaker--a simple, affordable, effective pump for small-scale crop irrigation.

The MoneyMaker pumps were the focus of a fantastic 2002 Wired article, back when KickStart was called ApproTEC. That article made a big impact on your then-17-year-old narrator, because it was about practical ingenuity applied to problems in the developing world, and that kind of thing gets me all giddy.

But wait. It gets so much better. There now exists a rap video about the MoneyMaker (the pump, not a butt) by a Maasai rap artist named Mr. Ebbo, seen here very excited about something...possibly an irrigation pump:



--

The importance of a place like the Lemelson Center cannot be overemphasized.

It offers an entirely unique form of education. It breaks down traditional barriers between education in the arts, the business world, and the fab shop. Traditional educational structures tend to stifle this interdisciplinary learning, especially at the large universities that award most degrees (like mine).

It cultivates inventiveness. Moreover, it focuses inventive energy on the problems of groups that traditionally go overlooked: the disabled and the developing world.

From a business perspective, these markets may go untapped because at first the numbers look all wrong: the R&D and manufacturing costs appear too high relative to the size of the market. But the Lemelson Center can provide a vibrant think tank where good ideas can develop into marketable designs, and the Foundation can provide seed capital to get these designs distributed to the folks who need them, via a non-profit like KickStart. There are hundreds of similar problems waiting to be solved with a solution like the MoneyMaker.

This is one blogger who would hate to see a place as valuable as Lemelson disappear, even if I never study or work there.