Making Makers by AnnMarie Thomas

Author:AnnMarie Thomas
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Published: 2014-09-26T22:09:44+00:00

68 | MAKING MAKERS

Fittingly, at the end of our video chat, Luc turned his camera to one of the walls in his office at Disney. There, I saw an elaborate prototype for a new ride concept.

The model was made entirely of Meccano parts, from the set that Luc bought with his paper route money when he was an 11-year-old boy in Canada.

Figure 6-1. Luc Mayrand, his brother, and his father, with his Meccano Set Number 10 (photo courtesy of Luc Mayrand)

PERSISTENCE | 69

Calling for Help

I was not a tinkerer as a kid. I think I was born more a physicist than an engineer. I marvelled at the way things work. Why things cool off in a predictable way. I think I got to a point that I thought enough about the world, literally everything from thermodynamics to Newtonian dynamics, and realized one day I’m going to have to get a job, nobody’s going to pay me to sit around and think and watch the world and try to understand the whys. I’d better figure out how to make the hows so that I can make a living.

And he did. This child who wanted to “make the hows,” instead of just “understanding the whys,” went on to lead the development of a wheelchair that could climb stairs, a prosthetic arm capable of performing complex tasks, and robotics competitions that involve hundreds of thousands of students annually. So impactful and prolific are his accomplishments that in 2013 this inventor, Dean Kamen (Figure 6-2), was

awarded the James C. Morgan Global Humanitarian Award. Not bad for someone who did not consider himself a tinkerer.

Figure 6-2. A sketch of five-year-old Dean Kamen, drawn by his father, Jack Kamen (drawing courtesy of Dean Kamen)

70 | MAKING MAKERS

Dean’s story isn’t one of things coming easily to him. Rather, it is one of a child who was so determined to learn that he wouldn’t take no for an answer. He began looking for challenges to work on. It was in the early days of power electronics and the “whole world was going disco because you could drive a whole building to the beat of music.” Dean became fascinated by the idea of driving lighting systems with sound.

He started building sound and lighting equipment that he would then sell to local bands at a substantial markup from his materials’ cost. At this point I had to stop Dean for clarification. Had he really taught himself this all by looking at books and trying things? It turned out he did. Plus he had figured out who to call for help.

“I would call the companies and get what we would now call an applications engineer on the phone and I would say ‘I’m working on this,’ and I’d try to sound like an adult and I would tell them that this was what I needed to do and I was having trouble with their data sheets.” Dean admits that it would often take numerous attempts at calling the same company before he would find someone who was interested in helping him.

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