Letter 73 - Let me help!
Boy oh boy, how things change. Nowadays when we’re teaching students design the courses are heavily structured to include a team structure. Much emphasis on teamwork, working toward a common goal, communications, etc. Because that’s pretty much what the real world is like. Or at least that’s what I’ve been told - I’ve spent my life trying to avoid the really real world as much as possible!
But when I was a fresh-faced student trodding through the groves of academe and making sacrifices on the altar of knowledge, teams were only seen on the sports field. Or on the water in my case as the most teamy sort of thing I experienced was rowing lightweight crew. Have you ever rowed in an eight man shell? Lots of romanticized accounts are out there, the latest being The Boys in the Boat. It’s a good read! My most vivid memory was going out on Lake Carnegie in the late fall, a decidedly crisp edge to the air, and no worries about any excessive sun exposure. First because it was 5 AM and second because it was raining. Or maybe pouring is a better description. And as I rowed out to the far end of the lake, in addition to concentrating on my stroke so as to not “catch a crab” (see - that’s rower jargon!) I thought about all the water that was falling into the boat. Water that I had to propel across the dark gray waters along with myself and my portion of “le boat”.
That was the moment at which I said “Ehhhh, this is dumb”. Totally missing the spirit of esprit de corps that it was supposed to engender and short circuiting the toughening of spirit to overcome adversity that was presumably felt by other, more rowery, boys.
In any event, back in my engineering classes it was definitely every man or woman for themselves. A dog eat whatever he could find in the garbage can world.
And I so clearly remember the ultimate non-team challenge placed before us. It was our second design class and the highlight was “the bag of garbage” contest. The task the prior year was to make a device from a bag of professor supplied junk that could travel a certain number of feet forward, then stop before exceeding a certain limit, reverse, and travel back to the start. And the device that did it the quickest would win. The only power was what you could get from gravity and a couple of springs and rubber bands.
The winning design was just wonderful.
It was a narrow plank with a central mast, something like a one masted lightweight sailboat. But instead of a sail it carried a large mass which slid along the mast. To the right and left of the mast were two large diameter, but very thin, wheels. Fore and aft were smaller wheels and only the front or the back contacted the ground at any one time, the rear when accelerating forward and the front when going back. A string was wound around the central wheel pulley in a clockwise manner for half its length and then it switched to counter clockwise (or widdershins, if you prefer).
As the weight dropped the string unwound, thus driving the device forward just far enough to hit the forward travel requirement and then backward back to the starting point due to the wrapping changing direction. And because they controlled the length of string, the designers could precisely control how far the device traveled.
A super elegant solution to the problem that not only won (by a lot) but accomplished the task faster than the professor had suggested was possible. All the other designs were lumbering and massive in comparison. Heavy tanks as compared to a racing bicycle.
I’ve gotta say, the solution inspired me. Lightness and efficiency was my new mantra.
The design contest for my year was different. We had to make a device that would climb a 30 degree incline of sand. The other competitor would be climbing from the other side, also along a 30 degree ramp. Whichever device got to the top and was highest of the two at the end of the time interval would be the winner. Successive contest would be run and whoever was the winner at my school (Princeton) would then compete against MIT’s winner.
Each student had to construct their device from an identical pile of “junk” and for our contest the power wouldn’t be supplied by gravity or springs but via an electric motor, powered by electricity from an external power source and carried over to the competition arena via wires. (Picture some ominous foreshadowy music accompanying my writing the word “wires”).
Inspired by the lightness and efficiency mantra I decided that the best approach would be to create a strong but light skiff that would fly up the slope, beating all comers. And once there, it would deploy a barrier against the competing device that would keep it from coming up to the top and also keep it from dislodging my own device. I looked into how torque and gear ratios work and realized that if my wheels didn’t have lots of tread but rather were smooth cylinders with just two thin paddles placed opposite each other, the motor would cause the cylindrical surface to spin quickly, a paddle would contact the sand and jerk the device forward, and then there’d be another 180 degrees of rotation for the cylinder to spin around and then smack the next paddle into the sand.
The net result would be a fast series of impulses, bang - bang - bang, which would scurry the craft along to the top in the blink of an eye. Or maybe a couple of blinks. Seriously, though, it took around a second for it to go from the bottom of the slope to the top. I figured I couldn’t lose.
And indeed I didn’t, taking the crown at Princeton. But (cue the ominous music) my design had been predicated on the notion that external disturbances weren’t “a thing”. And during my design phase I’d presumed the power lines would be overhead so that they weren’t pulling on the vehicle. Which they WERE during the Princeton phase one of the competition. But during the MIT grudge match they were draped over the sides of the walls containing the sand slope!! Which meant there was now a pull to the side and unwanted friction.
If your vehicle is heavy and lumbering it was a non-issue. But for a light and fleet greyhound? Disastrous! The added friction this unexpected obstacle supplied slowed mine down just enough to allow the MIT pretender to arrive first and to thus cast mine into the pit of despair and defeat.
They changed the rules in the middle! The contest was rigged!
But it was okay. It taught me an important lesson. Namely that you can plan all you want, but when you finally meet reality you have to be ready for surprises. Rediscovering for myself Helmuth von Moltke’s observation “no plan survives contact with the enemy”.
Happily, the loss didn’t scar me too severely. AND it’s time to circle back to the whole point. Which was that the competition was one-on-one. No teams, no teamwork. In fact I recall going to the machine shop off-hours because I wanted to be sure no competitor could catch wind of my brilliant insights into propulsion up a sandy slope.
Of course, this fed in nicely to my general mindset, one that I’ve had for as long as I can remember. Namely - life is a competition, it’s a hard world, nobody is going to do it for you, and if you want to succeed you have to bear down and outwork, and outthink everyone else.
Yeah, I was an interesting six year old …
And although I exaggerate perhaps a bit, I was pretty focused and achievement driven. A product of my upbringing? Natural inclination? A mix of both? Who knows? But would I possibly have accomplished more if I’d had more encouragement to work in a shared teamwork manner? Again - who knows? That’s the annoying thing about life. If life were well designed we’d get several go arounds to try different approaches. Experiment and see what works best. However, sadly, that’s not the drill. One life, one chance, and when it’s done it’s done. So you pays your money and you makes your choice.
And speaking of choice, isn’t the one facing our nation an interesting one? Seemingly a wide swath of this country actively wants a king/dictator. And yet, that shouldn’t be surprising. Even way way back in the day, after we’d finally won the War of Independence that we’re commemorating today, the day I’m writing this, there were a ton of folks who thought the same. Basically “Hey, we just got rid of that mean old King from England so I guess now we can have a home-grown American king!” Namely George Washington.
All Washington had to do was say the word and it would have been a done deal. But, being steadfast in his original plan to give the British a can of whup ass and then bow out, having done his duty to his country, he did just that. And thus for the next quarter of a millennium we’ve been a country with a balance of powers between the Executive, Judicial and Legislative branches.
Has History called time on that structure? Are we finally going to install a “never gonna leave” chief executive? I guess we’ll all know in time for Thanksgiving. Let’s hope we have something to be thankful for, eh?
And I can’t leave off without some new kitty content, can I? I’m happy to announce that although Aubrey has declared my Herman Miller chair as his own, he’s graciously agreed to let me perch on the very front while naps. I think he’s trying to improve my posture by forcing me to sit up straight.
Nickyitis
Und dat’s dat for dis week!