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Engertainment Tonight
Brad Gelfand
Move over Doc Emit L. Brown. To borrow a Huey Lewis line, it's hip to be square. That's right my fellow engineers, all of the sudden we're cool, and we don't even have to build a time traveling Delorian. Thanks in large part to cable television's current obsession with engineering television shows, engineering has transformed from the science of nerds, to popular entertainment. To the advantage of engineers everywhere, the recent interest in engineering as entertainment has spread public awareness of exactly what we do. So put down your TI-89s and pick up your remote controls because engineers have become TV stars.
It started almost three years ago when Comedy Central introduced Battlebots. This show gives everyone from lawyers to Air Force Academy students a chance to play engineer by building remote controlled robotic gladiators. These machines can compete in any of four weight categories in a mechanical fight to the death. Combatants exchange blows by flipping, hammering and ramming their opponents in the Battlebox - the Coliseum-like playing field equipped with giant hammers and spiked edges. At the end of the season, the most victorious robot participants from each weight class are awarded the coveted Giant Nut. Another robot jousting program has popped up on The National Network. TNN's Robot Wars: Extreme Warriors is similar to Battlebots in most respects. Spawned from Britain's popular Robot Wars, TNN's installment into the robot fighting genre is more akin to professional wrestling. Hosted by the WWF's Mick Foley, these engineers are encouraged to trash talk their opponents (incidentally, this is something that many engineers aren't very adept at).
Before you roll you eyes and excuse engineering television shows as worthless testosterone driven garbage, realize that their value cannot be understated. For all the pomp and circumstance surrounding these programs, they do offer an important service to the general public on behalf of engineers all over the world. They expose the television viewing audience to what it is that engineers actually do, albeit in a strange and uncommon form. A good majority of the public has no clue what it entails to be an engineer. With popular television shows portraying "engineers" designing, constructing and problem solving something that they can tangibly see sheds light on something that has always been elusive - a user-friendly definition of what an engineer is. When someone watches either of these shows, they are exposed to mechanical, electrical and design problems that every robot builder must face. When a Battlebot or Robot Warrior cannot elude its opponent's attacks because of its high center of gravity, the commentators typically explain these complex concepts in layman's terms. In the case of Battlebots, Bill Nye, the "Science Guy", acts as Technical Expert to explain somewhat complex concepts in terms that non-engineers can understand.
What the programs boil down to is a colorful, overindulgent engineering lesson. What each viewer comes away with is a better understanding of the problems that face real engineers on an everyday basis. Additionally, viewers can realize the time, effort and ingenuity that many engineers must utilize in order to see a project to completion. Specifically, Battlebots occasionally shows mini-documentaries of the process of building some of the robotic warriors. This emphasizes the dedication that many of the builders must have in order to complete projects that literally take months or in some cases years. The dedication of the contestants is something that television audiences can admire and equate with the role of a real engineer.
Still, these programs provide entertainment first and engineering principles take a back seat. TLC's Junkyard Wars delves deeper into some of the more meaningful concepts facing today's engineers. The program pits two teams of actual engineers whose goal is to design and create a machine to perform a certain task. However, the only materials that they are allowed to use are those that they find from the surrounding junkyard. The tasks that the machines must perform change each show and run the gamut from egg launching to mountain climbing.
What this show has the others lack is that it takes the viewer through the process of designing and building the machine. In fact, in the hour of the show, nearly 45 minutes are spent on this, while only 15 minutes are spent on its performance. Within the first part of the show, we see the contestants compete against time constraints and material constraints. Viewers see engineers using a radiator fan from a broken down semi where a motor boat propeller was originally required. As a result, viewers begin to understand the necessity for engineers to constantly alter their designs to fit with the surrounding limitations. Although the details of the constraints surrounding the contestants are not necessarily accurate, the idea that engineers must work within given limits still rings true.
Junkyard Wars also gives the audience a look at the necessity of teamwork when creating a large project. Usually the losing team is the one that does not work together because they waste valuable time. As the show progresses, the hosts explain the difficulties and concerns that confront the engineers during the building process. This gives the viewer a chance to appreciate the difficulties that engineers confront on a daily basis. It also provides a miniature physics lesson. Additionally, when the machine actually performs, it is interesting to see where the design went wrong. Junkyard Wars picks up where the robot jousting shows leave off, by offering a more realistic and meaningful look at engineering. And just in case TLC ran the risk of being too intellectual, the network is adding a new show, Robotica, which will take the form of the previous two programs. It is scheduled to begin on December 12.
These programs have the possibility of doing for engineering what ER did for doctors or at least what Gomer Pyle did for the Marine Corps. So if you begin to notice a new found respect for engineers by the general public, or that engineering students start walking with a little more swagger, the source may just be the recent rise in popularity of engineering as entertainment. The next time someone asks you what an engineer is, tune in to any of cable television's engineering television programs. In that light, we should collectively thank the creators of these shows because they do us an enormous favor. And if one of you decides to compete, who knows, maybe someday you will take your engineering degree and end up a television star.
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