Ugh.. Nothing went smoothly today.. Work meetings were long and complicated. Code didn’t work… My email got screwed up… I should have known better when the local tv station called me up to ask me to do a 5 minute piece live tonight on their 5:39 news show, the idea was to promote eWeek, the international celebration of engineering this week folks all over the world will be taking time off from their day jobs to go into schools to give witness to the undeniable awesomeness of engineering . Its always a fun time.. We usually go in in groups of two or more.. Always with an interactive activity… Ive been dong it for almost 20 years. .. For many years it seemed like we had to ‘push’ the content.. In the past few years, though, i sense more of a pull. Kids are already primed to the awesomeness of technology and how it works in their lives.. Our job is ‘simply’ to connect that recognized awesomeness to something they feel they could and would like to do…
Im really proud of my ibm colleagues… Last year the 127 folks from my facility volunteered their time and visited 51 area schools…. While there they worked with over 4500 Vermont kids… How awesome is that.. ?.. This years experiments hilight alternative energy, electromagnetism and circuits , making musical instruments… And (for me at least) big sparks and blowing things up…

Unfortunately, big sparks weren’t on the program for me today… I broght in my musical tesla coil to use on my short tv stint.. My idea was to talk eweek and the local makers community then make. A giant sark… Well… During one of the breaks a few min before my piece i gave the coil a little test burst… All the monitors blacked out for a moment and everyone’s earpieces nearly jumped out of their heads with noise.. One of the technicians shot his head out of the camera area and yelled to shut it off..

Luckily (or unluckily i guess) i did this before my segment… I had to content myself with talking about eweek and engineering with no special effects… Not exactly sure what i said.. but i missed using my toy… The interviewer did explain how it had nearly shut down the station.. Which was some small consolation 🙂

Oh well.. Should have known better.. But i was glad to get out the and push eweek… If you’re an engineer or scientist. Anywhere in the world,.. Please take some time this week to share your love of engineering with a kid or adult… We need all the help we can get !

Ok… Time for sleep… More tomorrow

-nite , nite sam
-me

Oh well….

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