Local programs address the need for more U.S. engineers
By Joseph Short, 18 and Eric Wagner, 15, with contributions by Andrew Powell, 17 and Hayley Maskus, 16

Some feel the future of American engineering looks dismal as our country prepares for further technological expansion.

According to a recent Harris Interactive Survey on behalf of the engineering group American Society for Quality, 85 percent of students in the US ages eight to 17 said they would prefer a more exciting career than engineering.

One alarming statistic in the same survey showed Twenty-one percent of girls said their parents were more likely to encourage them to become an actress before an engineer.

For some, considering those statistics is a scary proposition. Just about everything in the United States has been designed through some process of engineering. Without an adequate number of new engineers to replace the engineers who will retire in the near future, the United States could possibly lose the technological advantage it has traditionally held.

A group from Michigan Technological University in Houghton is trying to change those statistics. The group came to the Upper Peninsula Children’s Museum in Marquette and held a Family Engineering Night back in April.

The event included a variety of fun, hands-on engineering activities designed to stir an interest in the field among young people. The group was lead by Engineering Professor Neil Hutzler who said they were trying to shed a new light upon engineering.

“ We’re showing people some of the things that engineers do, the kind of problems that they solve to make this a better world,” Hutzler said. “Maybe if kids find out that engineering is actually kind of fun more of them will be interested in it.”

A number of Michigan Tech engineering students helped out with the event. Mitchell Schuh, who graduated last spring with a degree in electrical engineering, took an interest in engineering from a young age.

“ It was just something that I’ve always wanted to do,” he said.

Schuh believes that education on what engineers actually do will help get more youth to consider the field for their future.

“ A lot of kids don’t understand what engineering actually is, the engineering process,” he said. “So, if they don’t understand it, they might think that it’s overwhelming, or think that it’s only for really smart people. But once they see what really goes into engineering, I’m sure a lot more will be interested in the field.”

Randy Thomas, who is pursuing a career as a mechanical engineer at Michigan Tech said, for him, rather then taking up an interest in engineering from a young age, he found out about the field by different means.

“ My freshman year of high school. I got into drafting and design and the local CAD (computer aided design) classes, “ he said

Thomas also believes children are afraid to enter the field of engineering. He feels students believe it’s all about the test scores and feel they aren’t intelligent enough to enter the field.

“ Engineering activities such as this one here at the Children’s Museum and in school are good,” he said. “We should not pressure kids into it based on math and science scores, but we should educate kids in their younger ages that engineering is involved in anything we do––that just about anything you’ve touched has been designed, built, manufactured by an engineer on all levels.”

According to Hutzler there are reasons why young individuals haven’t taken up engineering as an interesting career. Some of the important subjects, math and science for example, which used to be the main focus in our nations schools, could be on a downward trend in popularity.

“ It’s important that kids do well in math and science,” he said. “Anything that we can do to encourage young people to be curious is good, but math and science are pretty important subjects that they need to be able to study.”

A look at one Marquette area school group shows that our nation isn’t at a total loss. Some young students eagerly take part in a Lego Robotics program offered through the Crossroads Christian Academy in Harvey.

Sam Salo, twelve, of Marquette, is a member of the group. Salo said he understands the important role engineering has played in our society.

“ If there weren’t engineers we wouldn’t have the White House and if there weren’t engineers we wouldn’t have iron ore for our cars, and we wouldn’t have plants to build the ships and cars and stuff,” he said.

Lego Robotics exposes children to different exercises that are related to engineering. In the program, children design and build machines out of the familiar children’s toys that run on a motor. Then the students use a computer program to tell the machines to do certain task. The “robots” are timed to see which one does a required task in the quickest time.

Different groups compete in regional competitions. It’s a program in which students are learning but are having fun at the same time. Salo not only took an interest in engineering through his participation in the program, but he has also learned some other important skills as well.

“ You learn good teamwork and how everyone likes to work,” he said.

Salo’s teammate, Paul Motter, eleven, of Marquette, would also consider engineering as a possible career pathway. He has also found why engineering is important to our society.

“ Engineers make cars for transportation, they design medical stuff. They build bridges design roads that are more efficient and that will stay up,” he said.

Adam Smith, eleven, of Marquette, has also taken a part in the Lego Robotics team. He already enjoys one of the basic skills it requires to become an engineer.

“ Yeah I would consider it (becoming an engineer) because it’s fun to design stuff,” he said. “In Lego Robotics you learn how to program the robots and design the robots.”

Meanwhile, there were a significant number of students in the group who didn’t have an interest in becoming an engineer. One student was Sydny Waterman, eleven, of Marquette.

“ I would rather do something more like, animals, because I love animals,” she said.

Still, Waterman offered up this advice on what educators and others can do to interest youth in engineering.

“ We could probably make them work on stuff they like,” she said. “If they are interested in cars they could engineer cars.”

Motter added his advice.

"Well, we could promote this Lego Robotics thing,” he said. “We could do some more hands-on things in science and, yeah, work with computers a little more often.”

Salo had one of the most unique approaches for getting the interest level up among young people.

“ You could put up an awesome sign that says ‘Engineering is Awesome!’”

According to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics over the next decade the engineering profession will grow by an estimated eleven percent. During the current hard economic times, with the accompanying high unemployment, it’s hard to believe there are still fields that need employees and could face a shortage in the future.

Many experts say that in order for the United States to remain economically competitive in the world, more homegrown engineers will be needed. Many feel that if enough of the younger generation does not go into important fields such as engineering, and instead go into fields related more to the liberal arts, our country will lose its technological competitiveness. That is why more engineering schools and industries are taking a more proactive approach to getting young individuals interested in the field.

Programs such as the Family Engineering Night at the Children’s Museum and Lego Robotics are a start in that direction.