Museum of Science, Boston

Press Release [Return to listing page]

November 28, 2007

Download the press kit for this release, plus photos and captions from Eric Bailey and Helen Greiner's visit to the exhibit.

BOSTON, Mass. — With the increasing importance of technological literacy and the need for trained engineers and scientists, the Museum of Science, Boston will unveil Innovative Engineers on November 28, 2007. This permanent exhibit not only chronicles the inspiring lives of seven very different engineering leaders, but also engages visitors in the engineering and problem-solving activities that are as important to living as they are to innovation.

The Museum created the Innovative Engineers exhibit to help educate and motivate young people to understand the engineering process and consider becoming engineering leaders themselves. The exhibit's Video Viewing Area and Engineering Design Workshop will play a key role in the Museum's Gordon Current Science & Technology (GCS&T) Center.

In the Video Viewing Area , visitors will meet these engineering luminaries on a large LCD screen and discover the paths to engineering success are as varied as their inventions:

>NeuroLogica cofounder and electrical engineer Eric Bailey : he transformed a personal tragedy into the CereTom ®, the first mobile head/neck CT scanner for medical emergencies;

>U.S. Naval Research Laboratory astrophysicist George Carruthers : he turned a boyhood love of Buck Rogers and astronauts into the far ultraviolet cameras used in the Apollo 16 lunar mission and the Space Shuttle;

>Computer scientist Helen Greiner: inspired as a girl by the Star Wars film saga's robot R2-D2, she cofounded iRobot, designer of the iRobot ® PackBot ® bomb disposal robot, deployed in Iraq, and the iRobot ® Roomba ® Vacuum Cleaning Robot (over two million sold worldwide);

>DEKA Research & Development Corporation founder Dean Kamen : he invented the first wearable device able to deliver precise doses of medication, the Auto Syringe ®, the portable Baxter HomeChoice™ PD peritoneal dialysis machine, and a stairclimbing wheelchair, the INDEPENDENCE® iBOT® 4000 Mobility System;

>DuPont chemist Stephanie Kwolek: good at sewing as a child, she invented Kevlar®, the liquid crystal polymer woven into the super-strong fiber used in lifesaving body armor and suspension bridge cables.

Kiosks in other areas of the Museum will connect the stories of the late Edwin Land, founder of Polaroid Corporation, and Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, to existing Museum science exhibits. Incredibly, these seven inventors have amassed over 1,040 patents worldwide.

For the exhibit, the Museum chose successful, creative, and intriguing engineering leaders, capable of multidisciplinary thinking, whose products have made the world a better place. Kamen, for example, began by creating life-saving medical devices, then invented the Segway® Personal Transporter, and now is tackling a "Goliath" problem, making clean water cheaply for the Third World via his "Slingshot" machine, a small combination power generator-water purifier.

"Beyond these shared criteria, there's extraordinary variety," says Museum exhibit developer Ed Rodley. "Some of our engineering leaders are CEOs; others run research labs. Some liked school; others didn't. The exhibit will open your eyes and expand your view of 'engineering,'" says Rodley, who interviewed all five living inventors. "They all do things they love. We try to convey this passion."

"This exhibit gives young people remarkable engineering role models and hands-on experiences with engineering skills and ideas," says Ioannis (Yannis) Miaoulis, Museum of Science president and director and Tufts University's former dean of engineering. "We hope to inspire the engineering leaders of tomorrow. Many people don't even know what engineers do. From bridges to baseball bats, engineering is everywhere, and it comes naturally to children. We want visitors to see that engineering skills are personally relevant. We strive to integrate engineering as a new discipline nationwide because our future depends on educating great engineers."

With the Engineering Design Workshop, the Museum's Design Challenges program finds a permanent home in the GCS&T Center, which has interpreted science and technology news for millions of visitors since 2001. For four years, Museum educators have guided 50,000 young visitors (45% boys) and (55% girls), aged 9 to 15, in challenges involving the engineering design cycle. Engaging in a hands-on activity to design, build, and test a prototype solution to a problem, visitors take on the role of engineer experiencing the innovation process.

On Monday - Friday 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. , when Museum educators arrive in the new space, the Workshop's front panels raise dramatically and a giant glass door slides open. A suspended plasma display shows live video on the day's challenge. Visitors may design shelters for the Museum's live animals which they later test, prototype a bobsled or develop their own tightrope walker. At the nearby GCS&T Center stage, practicing engineers may demonstrate their work. Design Challenges program manager Lydia Beall, herself a chemical engineer, says, "Young people value working in teams like real engineers, often building and testing their prototypes for up to two hours." Research shows that these challenges successfully guide visitors through the design cycle: Ask, Imagine, Plan, Create, Test/Improve. Nearly everyone studied reported their hands-on activity enabled them to experience the kind of work scientists and engineers do. People around the world can design their own aviary online at http://www.mos.org/designchallenges.

As children work on their challenges, visitors in the Video Viewing Area can screen original interviews with the inventors in their workshops and see their inventions in action. Panels feature photographs of the engineers at work, cases of related artifacts, and information highlighting their interests, drive to learn, inspirations, early accomplishments, and leadership qualities. Visitors will hear the stories behind the engineers' inventions, what problems intrigued them, and how their creations have changed, or might change, the world.

Elsewhere in the Museum, visitors will encounter Innovative Engineers kiosks introducing Alexander Graham Bell and his telephone at the Messages exhibit and Edwin Land, inventor of the polarizing filter and instant photography, near the Atrium's polarized light collage.

From the engineers' stories and the Design Challenges, visitors will discover that failure is an important part of what engineers do, that if what they are making doesn't work, they try again. "That's where the learning is," says Rodley. "Engineering is a contact team sport. It's messy, interactive, unexpected, deeply rewarding, and each solution often leads to another problem."

Tied to the national Standards for Technological Literacy (ITEA 2000) and the Massachusetts Science and Technology/Engineering Curriculum Framework (MA DOE 2006), the exhibit embodies the goals of the Museum's National Center for Technological Literacy® (NCTL®), launched in 2004 to enhance knowledge of engineering and technology for people of all ages and to inspire the next generation of engineers, inventors, and scientists.

Support

A $20 million gift from the Gordon Foundation supported the creation of the Sophia & Bernard M. Gordon Endowed Fund in 2006 to inspire future engineering leaders via exciting interactive exhibits and programs related to engineering education, both in the Museum and classrooms nationwide. The Innovative Engineers exhibit and Design Challenges program are made possible through a portion of this gift, which also enables planning and designs for a Technology Gallery and construction of the Gordon Wing, headquarters of the NCTL and offices of the Museum's Exhibit and Research & Evaluation staff.

About the Museum of Science, Boston

The only science museum in the country with a comprehensive strategy and infrastructure to foster technological literacy in both science museums and schools nationwide, the Museum is developing technology exhibits and programs and integrating engineering as a new discipline in schools via standards-based K-12 curricular reform. One of the world's largest science centers, the Museum attracts over 1.6 million visitors a year through its programs and 700 interactive exhibits. First to embrace all the sciences under one roof, the Museum is ranked one of the U.S.'s top two science museums in the Zagat Survey's "U.S. Family Travel Guide" and one of the top 2 most visited hands-on science centers in Forbes Traveler's "25 most visited museums" in the U.S. Highlights include the Thomson Theater of Electricity; Charles Hayden Planetarium; the Mugar Omni Theater (reopening in December 2007); 3-D Digital Cinema; and Butterfly Garden. Reaching 20,000 underserved teens worldwide via the Intel Computer Clubhouse Network®, the Museum is lead partner in a multi-museum, $20 million National Science Foundation-funded nanotechnology education initiative. The Museum's "Science Is an Activity" exhibit plan has been awarded many NSF grants and influenced science centers worldwide. Visit www.mos.org.