My father, Marlan Bourns, was an only child and grew up on a farm near Detroit. Between attending a one room school and his chores, my father enjoyed

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Christina Sparks
5 years ago
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1 As a CEO, I am responsible for a hi tech company. I am increasingly concerned that, in the near future, we will not be able to hire enough scientists and engineers to remain a leader in the electronics industry. Too few students in the United States are graduating with degrees in STEM, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. And, technology is changing at lightning speed. Studies show that students decide as early as the 4 th grade whether or not they like math and science. Unfortunately, many boys and even more girls get the idea that those subjects are not cool or are too hard. This is compounded by the fact that most of our schools no longer offer shop classes where students can make things and get excited about technology, what I call Hands on STEM Education. The lack of shop is being addressed for some students by robotics clubs which are becoming popular, and by the Maker Space movement, such as we see at Vocademy here in Riverside. However, much more must be done to encourage our students to pursue STEM. First, I will present a short case study, and then I will offer three recommended actions you can take to encourage students to pursue a STEM education. 1

2 My father, Marlan Bourns, was an only child and grew up on a farm near Detroit. Between attending a one room school and his chores, my father enjoyed making mechanical things. 2

3 One of the projects my father built was this mechanical shooting gallery. It had ducks that moved and fell over when he hit them with a BB gun. Whenever he went to town with his parents, he would get the latest issues of Popular Mechanics or Mechanics Illustrated. He often sent away for sets of drawings of projects he could build. 3

4 For example, at age 16, he built two cars big enough for adults to drive. One was gasoline powered and the other was electric powered. My father took great care in forming and painting their metal bodies. His favorite classes in high school were his shop classes, wood working and metal working, where he learned to use tools and machines to do a skilled job in building things. My father s passion for constructing mechanical and electrical devices continued in college, where he spent many hours learning how to use most of the equipment in the machine shop in the University of Michigan s Physics Department. He gained a reputation for being able to translate ideas into hardware, so was asked to work on other students projects and even projects for some of the physics professors. 4

5 Graduating during World War II with a bachelors degree in physics, my father s ability to make things resulted in his being selected to work at CAL TECH in Pasadena on various aerospace sensors in support of the war effort. 5

While my father was working in California, my mother, Rosemary Miller, also attended the University of Michigan and earned a bachelors degree in teaching.

6 While my father was working in California, my mother, Rosemary Miller, also attended the University of Michigan and earned a bachelors degree in teaching. During her summer vacations, she managed a jewelry store. After the war, as my mother s graduation approached in June of 1947, my father decided to surprise her by driving from California to Michigan to attend her graduation and propose to her. They were married two weeks after her graduation and spent their honeymoon driving back to California. 6

7 Upon arriving in Pasadena, my parents founded The Bourns Laboratories in their single car garage to make aerospace sensors. My father worked on the designs for new products and determined how to manufacture them. My mother s college education and experience in managing a jewelry store prepared her well for keeping the books and managing their small inventory of materials and parts. Their first machine was a drill press, which they purchased from Sears & Roebuck and put in their car s rumble seat to take back to their garage. They soon needed help so, they hired the next door neighbor, who was a draftsman, and several local engineers to develop several families of sensors and start manufacturing them. They used their kitchen s oven and freezer to do their hot and cold temperature testing to make sure their sensors would work in harsh environments. 7

8 In order to save money, they made much of their equipment, including this oscilloscope they used to test the sensors electrically. 8

9 In 1950, the Riverside Chamber of Commerce and the City of Riverside paid the cost to move their equipment to Riverside. 9

Their first products were a vane potentiometer, shown bottom right, which indicated to the pilot the angle of the aircraft relative to the wind, and a linear motion potentiometer shown above the vane

10 Their first products were a vane potentiometer, shown bottom right, which indicated to the pilot the angle of the aircraft relative to the wind, and a linear motion potentiometer shown above the vane potentiometer, which indicated the position of the rudder or elevators. My parents booked their first big order when they went to Consolidated Vultee aircraft company in San Diego and were awarded a contract for 10 units of every sensor they could make. One part they said they needed was a bourdon tube pressure transducer. My father said, Sure, we can make that. After all but one of the engineers left the room, my father asked him, What s a bourdon tube? He got his answer, they delivered all of the units on time and Consolidated Vultee was a very satisfied customer. 10

In 1969, just twenty two years after my parents founded their company in their Pasadena garage, they marveled as the Apollo 11 Lunar Landing Module settled gently on the surface of the moon using a

11 In 1969, just twenty two years after my parents founded their company in their Pasadena garage, they marveled as the Apollo 11 Lunar Landing Module settled gently on the surface of the moon using a joy stick landing control with linear motion potentiometers they had designed and produced in Riverside! Their pressure sensors regulated the astronauts oxygen levels as they walked on the surface of the moon and the company they founded 67 years ago has not stopped innovating! I would like to offer several observations: 1. My father became interested in technology by doing hands on projects, beginning at an early age. 2. His shop classes gave him the knowledge to use tools and machines. 3. This experience served as the foundation upon which he and my mother built a company to produce hi tech sensors and electronic components. This demonstrates the importance of showing students at a young age that STEM is fun and very cool. 11

12 My first recommended action is to attend a STEM event and find out how you can get involved. A good example was the STEM Conference held the past two days here in Riverside which was attended by over 4,000 students as well as hundreds of teachers and parents. The students learned to use microscopes and were amazed by what robots can do. 12

13 They sat in a mockup of the Stealth Fighter and a space capsule, learned about electric cars andpilotedan underwater robot. 13

14 Engineers from General Atomics in San Diego put on a very professional Science Show which demonstrated properties of electricity and magnetism. 14

15 Yesterday afternoon, a STEM Teacher s Conference was conducted by Dr. Pam Clute, Assistant Vice Chancellor at UC Riverside. Dr. Clute taught 300 Inland Empire teachers math concepts and hands on projects to add depth to their classes.. 15

16 By attending Dr. Clute s Teacher Conference, I have learned how much teachers appreciate having scientists and engineers talk to their students about what they do. 16

17 This brings me to my second recommended action, which is to select a topic related to STEM, do research it and then present it in classrooms. I have been inspired by the fact that my father had almost 100 patents, including the one above for his Trimpot trimming potentiometer, which he invented in Today, 62 years later, this is still our company s best known and most profitable product line. Earlier this year, I spoke to the Riverside STEM Academy. My first question to the students was How many of you have filed for a patent? When no one raised their hand, I asked, Why not? An answer I got was I m too young, and I told her there is not an age requirement to file for a patent. Another student said, It costs too much money, and I told responded to him that the cost is only $65.00 for an individual to file a Provisional Patent. And I asked, if you had a great invention, don t you think you would want to invest $65.00 in it to claim the rights to use it over anyone else? Then I said that if you have a good invention, it is really quite simple to write a patent. 17

18 Then I showed the students this first page of a patent and asked the students what they thought it was? They could not guess correctly from the figures, and the heading on the patent did not help them either: Velvet Type Fabric and Method of Producing Same filed in 1952, by inventor, G. De Mestral, I had picked this patent because I knew it was for an invention that every student used VELCRO. It was invented by a Swiss entrepreneur who was fascinated by the burs he got in his socks when hiking in the mountains. His patent consists of these two figures and only a page and a half of text. It is very concise and clearly shows the key elements of a patent. Itold the students that the figures in patents demonstrate that it is important to have some artistic ability in order to draw your invention and effective writing skills to describe your invention. 18

The upper left blue section is a clear description of the VELCRO invention, including why it is different and better than anything preceding it.

19 The upper left blue section is a clear description of the VELCRO invention, including why it is different and better than anything preceding it. The first referenced prior art was a patent issued 50 years earlier for shark skin, used to fasten together two ends of a belt. A shark s skin is rough in one direction, but smooth in the opposite direction. If you put two pieces of sharkskin together which are aligned in opposite directions, they will stick together. To get around this prior art, Mr. De Mestral states that his invention is made of man made materials, Nylon, which had just been invented, not natural materials, such as shark skin. The middle yellow section is an explanation of each element in all of the figures, pretty tedious stuff. However the green section on the right is where the money is. This section of the Velcro patent consists of 4 claims about the invention which, the patent office has agreed define what about the invention is protected for 20 years against anyone else coping it, unless they pay you money! This got the kids excited! I then challenged the students to be the first in their class to file for a patent. 19

My third and final recommended action is to select a hands on STEM project and demonstrate it in the classroom. The project I have selected for today is to Build a Motor.

20 My third and final recommended action is to select a hands on STEM project and demonstrate it in the classroom. The project I have selected for today is to Build a Motor. We begin by you reaching under your chair and locating a plastic bag Open the bag and find the pieces, a AA battery, which should have a foil covered magnet stuck on one end, a washer, a nut and a piece of pre shaped wire Place the washer on the arm of your chair Put the magnet over the center of the washer with the flat negative terminal of the battery on top of the magnet Put the nut on top of the positive terminal of the battery Then place the point of the wire rotor inside the nut and see what happens. Your completed motor should look like the photo on the right and it should be rotating. If it is not spinning, shape the wire so that the point is sharper to avoid friction with the inside of the nut and the other end is touching the foil covered magnet, but not dragging on the washer. Now, I ask you to think about how it works? What scientific principles does it demonstrate? How would you make it spin the other direction? How could you improve its performance? The motor is yours to keep, however, I ask that you show it to a student and explain how it works. Hint there is an explanation on the back of the enclosed instruction sheet. It is based upon perpendicular magnetic fields generating forces. These are the principles that make all electric motors work. 20

21 In conclusion, we can show students that STEM is very cool and worth pursuing. We can eachplay an important role in assuring that we have enough STEM graduates in the future. I think this is an idea worth spreading, and I hope you do, too! Thank you 21

Swinburne Commons Transcript

Swinburne Commons Transcript Title: You ll know Author(s): Maria-Jose Sanchez, Darren Croton, Kim Tairi, Alastair De Rozario, John Grundy, Josie Arnold Year: 2015 Audio/video available from: https://commons.swinburne.edu.au