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The best electronics show...for kids
August 18, 2006

I spent this week at the IEEE EMC Symposium in Portland, OR. Of all the shows and conferences I attend, this one is the best for kids. Not only are kids of all ages allowed on the show floor, they're welcome to collect candy, pens, pencils, CD cases, and anything else that exhibitors gladly dispense. My daughter did just that last year in Chicago.

But, there's more for kids than just collecting loot. The show has activities designed just for kids. Each year, Duane Bagdons, president of International Certification Services, devises an engineering-related project for the youngsters. This year, Duane built wooden racing boats, but he didn't complete them. That was for the youngsters to do.

Each child received a boat and he or she had to assemble it with a motor, propellor, and battery. Each child had to connect wires from the battery to the motor and decorate his or her boat before racing it in a makeshift water track. Prizes were awarded to the race winners and each child could take his or her boat home.

"The workforce is getting older," said Bagdons, who spends about $300 and many hours of his time to prepare the activity each year. "I want to encourage kids to become tomorrow's engineers. I make jigs in my workshop so that kids can have nearly identical projects." For next year, Bagdons is thinking about catamarans for the Honolulu symposium and perhaps dragsters for Detroit in 2008.

At some shows, you can't enter the exhibition hall if you're under 18 years old. Organizers of these shows are passing up a valuable opportunity to pique kids' interests in engineering.

Speaking of tomorrow's engineers, we're going to discuss the topic in depth for your 25th anniversary cover story, which will appear in our September issue. Be sure to check this site on September 1. For the story, editorial intern Amy Laskowski and I interviewed several EE professors and students to find out why students choose an engineering career--and why they don't. Be sure to read Amy's page on women in engineering, too.

IEEE EMC Symposium: Next year in Hawaii.

Posted by Martin Rowe on August 18, 2006 | Comments (0)