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where you are — and what more would you expect from a complex service droid?
by
Dennis Clark
As I write this, I have just returned from the Microchip Master’s Conference 2012, and boy was that a blast. I
should qualify that statement. It was a
blast for a seriously geek crowd of
hardware and firmware engineers that
really love their work of making things
that do stuff. The chipKIT folks at
Digilent had some very fun classes and
I discovered a seriously cool product
series by Roving Networks that puts an
entire Wi-Fi stack on a very affordable
module. I’ll be writing about that in a
little bit, but first, I have some
observations to make. The crowd
going to these events is looking
“grayer.” We need more younger
engineers coming into the “club”
which leads me to my next set of
musings …
For many years now, I have been
lamenting to anyone who would listen
(a shrinking crowd) that today’s kids
aren’t interested in how things work
and how to make them. They are only
interested in using the cool new
gadgets that our technology wizards
are creating for the consumer market.
My concern was further fueled by an
article in EETimes by Bill Schweber in
2008 which asked the question: “Are
we becoming a ‘Cargo Cult’?”
Schweber goes on to describe a cargo
cult which originated with a story
about Pacific Island natives in WWII
who built dummy replicas of radios,
antennas, and microphones to call for
planes to land with their desired
cargo, just like they saw the military
forces doing. The natives didn’t
understand what was behind the
technology they saw being used; they
just saw things happen when it was
used. Does that sound familiar to you
with respect to our smartphone
carrying society?
As more and more high
technology is created by a
shrinking pool of those who
understand how to create and
maintain these nearly magical
marvels, are we allowing
ourselves to simply go through
the motions of understanding
how our society’s underpinnings
work? That is a kind of scary
thought, isn’t it? There are
plenty of Orwellian scenarios to
play out in my mind dealing with
that concept. How about yours?
Now that I have ruined your
night’s sleep, let me try to allay your
fears! In the last few years, I’ve seen a
reversal of that trend forming. I am
referring to — of course — the “maker”
renaissance that has been born in
many places. The first (pun intended)
origin I believe is Dean Kamen’s
FIRST organization, which spawned
the First LEGO League. FLL hopes
to create the next generation of
our society’s engineers and
entrepreneurs. Later, came the rise of
the maker folks from Make Magazine
and the Maker events that happen
all around the world. The maker
movement is all about creating new
things of beauty and usefulness
without needing huge corporate
backing.
14 SERVO 10.2012
