"Old Style" Engineering Education For The Next Generation

[SlideRuleEra]

Last weekend my wife's daughter and her family visited the area for several days. Had a chance to spend time with my 13 year old technically inclined (step) grandson. Introduced him to the fundamental use of a Slide Rule - he was not only interested but wanted more problems to work.

After doing that for a while, moved on to operation of my (analog) Compensating Polar Planimeter to get the area of an irregular figure. Finally went into (pencil / paper) graphical integral calculus to get an approximate check on planimeter output.

Wife gave Grandson her high school level Pickett slide rule - he was thrilled. Says he will take it to school in the fall when STEM classes begin. Explained that he will be the only person in class (including Teacher) who knows what it is.

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[Ron]

SRE...it was great of you to introduce him to the "old school" stuff. I'm convinced that the experience of going through engineering school using a slide rule made better engineers....it required that we knew about where the answer should be before we got there....which required thinking! Too bad it can't still be a required course, at least....but with today's engineering curriculum fights and the watered down bachelor's degree, it won't fit.

Still have my Post Versalog.

 

[SlideRuleEra]

Ron - You nailed it - having him think is my objective... even told him so. Has a really good education so far (though 7th grade). His mother (a former teacher) has home schooled him until now - begins this fall at a school with a focused curriculum.

What surprised me was that he already has the ability to use scientific notation to figure out where the decimal point goes! Did not have to stick with simplified examples, e.g. 7 x 9 = 63. He was quite comfortable with, say 352 x 428 = ???

He has not encountered logarithms yet, so the logarithmic spacing of slide rule digits was a challenge.

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[Ron]

He'll get it! Sounds like you've got an engineer in the incubator!!

 

[BigH]

Now to teach how to build nomograms . . . wished I had learned this

 

[SlideRuleEra]

BigH - Hmmm... nomograms, good idea!
He is a baseball fan (and player).
Maybe can come up with a nomogram to calculate a player's batting average.

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