William Chops Westfield wrote:
>>> looking for associates to teach inventing
>>> using video conferencing or DVDs.
>>>
> Technology seems to have finally hit the mainstream, in the sense
> that random people without particularly "engineering-like"
> characteristics are starting to play with it as art, toys, etc.
> See things like "Make Magazine", http://www.instructables.com,
> and numerous other "alternative educational blogs" (for lack of
> a better term.)

Actually I'd say this is a RESURGENCE of people tinkering.  In the U.S. 
in the 20s and 30s (so I hear, I wasn't alive then), and even for a 
while after WWII, lots of backyard "inventors" and others tinkered with 
various things.  It used to be much more a part of the American 
psyche/mental landscape than it is today.

> I don't know whether to be pleased or disgusted.  It is part of
> the engineer personality (IMHO) that you should have a basic
> UNDERSTANDING of a tool before using (or abusing) it, and a lot
> of this is a rejection of that principle.  The same thing happened
> with computers quite some time ago, and it's still hard to tell
> whether it was a good thing overall (it was certainly PROFITABLE
> for a lot of people!)

I think this is a GOOD thing -- a lot of total junk will come out of it, 
but having more people PLAYING with things and really understanding how 
they work (after much hard-won experience via experimentation) is 
exactly what the U.S. needs to bring up knowledge levels right now.

So many people are blissfully unaware of how anything they use in 
day-to-day life actually WORKS, I can't see a general tendency toward 
wanting to tinker with things as being bad.

There's no harm done in not knowing what you're doing if you aren't 
producing a product for market.  As long as the writers are clearly 
labeling their missives as "for hobby use only", or "made by a hobbiest" 
there's really no downside to it.

People really SHOULD tinker and understand the world (and things they 
bought but have no idea how to operate or use properly -- computers 
being my pet peeve).

Will they do dumb things?  Sure.  Will they learn from their mistakes? 
Hopefully.  But it's a guarantee that you CAN NOT LEARN without making 
mistakes.  Teaching is all about limiting the consequences of the 
mistakes for students.  Ask any flight instructor.  :-)

Nate
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