Engineering Science … You Know More Than You Think

About the Book

The book shows how kids learn about engineering science, and how their play and solutions equip them to understand grown-ups’ actions later. Kids on teeter-totters learn about high-rise counter-balanced construction cranes; kids pushing other kids on wagons understand discussions of rockets launching heavy payloads into space; kids making snow-balls or making mud-clods (wet or dry, to throw at their buddies) learn about cohesion, plus about ballistics ; kids watching meteor showers, phases of the moon, and eclipses understand later explanations of astronomy; kids experience scrapes and bruises, and then understand infections and topical medications; kids experience sticky and slick surfaces, then understand traction, and wet-road hydro-planing, and adhesive residue; kids quickly learn about the need for insulation (lots of it in winter, none in Texas summers), and therefore understand selection of clothing, insulation of houses . insulation of Arctic pipelines; and much more. Active kids learn a lot!

About the Author

The author is a retired aerospace engineer, with plenty of patents and publications, years of mentoring rookie engineers, plus consulting and editing tech magazines. More importantly: four kids, seven grandkids and counting, and eight siblings. He grew up active, with siblings and other kids, in local woods, rivers, playgrounds, kindergarten. He learned many of the basics of engineering science: teeter-totters taught weights and balances, merry-go-rounds taught centrifugal and centripetal forces; shoving a fat kid in a wagon taught mass/force/acceleration/velocity; making mud clods to chunk at your buddy taught cohesion and ballistics; and much more. The author tries to show how these early experiences have enabled grown-ups, those without formal engineering science training, to understand and to contribute to current actions and studies in science as well as in engineering construction and product development.