Kid Power

I just read your "X-rated Engineering Show" editorial in the May issue of Designfax. Bless you for thinking of the children. They are the future and our hope for a better world. I enjoy your magazine very much.

--Dewey Kilgore, Ret. Packers, Carrollton, TX

I was dismayed to read about the entrance policy of the design show. I was more dismayed that the policy was (supposedly) dictated by the insurance company. The cause and the remedy are obvious. We have to stop suing each other; the laws need to be changed so that we can be responsible for ourselves. Our laws are a crapshoot. But as long as we all want to have someone else be responsible for us, we will have to have the limits. Try being somewhere in the AVIATION business!

-- Jim Ormsby, via email

Despite all the hubbub and glitz common at engineering shows, they are primarily for industry professionals, and are not science fairs. It's hard enough to sift through all the show's information without having to dodge running, screaming children. My motivation for attending is to seek out new suppliers or technology for the benefit of my company, which is paying me to do this. The motivation of a parent with a child is different; the difference in "mission" can be likened to the difference between a serious buyer at an automobile dealership and a "tire-kicker." One represents a potential customer, the other a nuisance. The goal of show exhibitors is to pull in new business now, not to serve as mentors for future generations of engineers.

I appreciate that seeing the wonders of modern engineering would go a long way toward sparking the imagination of future engineers, but children are exposed to this level of technology every day. If parents wish to expose their children to the engineering profession, they should take them to work on their own time to show them what "real engineers" do.

--John M. Jans, Senior Mechanical
Engineer, i-STAT Corporation

Here's some ammunition in your quest to have supervised under-18-year-olds attend trade shows that may influence their future. I was invited to cover a story at the Peach Bottom Nuclear Power Plant (PA). Coincidentally, my children were studying nuclear power that year in school. Recalling that the plant had a visitor center, I asked if the kids could visit it while I toured the plant. I was informed that the center closed years before, but that the children could accompany me if there were a one adult per child ratio on our excursion. The kids were thrilled to tour the control room, turbine area, staff areas -- everywhere except the reactor core itself! It was a great trip. I have to believe that if a 9- and 12- year-old were fine for inside a nuclear power plant, 11- and 13-year olds should be fine for the Design Show!

--Byron L. Goldstein, Glenside, PA, via email

I agree with you that youngsters should be allowed to visit the engineering shows under parental guidance. This is one more instance where attorneys and insurance companies set the rules. I think your idea of a consent form would work.

--Madi Rathin, via email

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