Adding entertainment to engineering
A
Parker-Origa product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team
May 29, 2007
Hoerbiger Origa MD Ray Barnes is calling for a combination of engineering and entertainment to capture the public's imagination.
Mechanical engineers will be at the forefront of all the most important technical and scientific developments for the next fifty years.
Yet for some reason they are the forgotten heroes - the backroom boys who never step up to the limelight to receive praise for their contributions.
Perhaps engineers are naturally shy, but Ray Barnes, Managing Director of pneumatics and linear motion specialist Hoerbiger Origa, worries for the future: "I can understand people wanting to avoid the public gaze, but if there is no recognition of engineers' contribution, there can be no general appreciation of their efforts".
"It's little wonder therefore that kids are not enthused to go into engineering careers".
"If we are not constantly nurturing the next generation of engineers, I wonder what will become of the national economy".
Nearly all fields of human endeavour require an element of mechanical engineering.
Transportation and automation require precision operation, efficient drives, and integration of multiple axes of movement, all at levels previously unobtainable.
In medical devices and nano-technology there is a need to interact on a microscopic level with the real world.
The telecommunications revolution cannot happen without infinitely controllable aerials and antennae.
The frontiers of space science will not advance without a plethora of mechanical systems able to operate in the most remote and hostile of environments.
Renewable energy, environmentally friendly cars, robotic domestic appliances will all be developed by mechanical engineers.
Yet how many mechanical engineers today achieve the celebrity status of geneticist Prof Sir Robert Winston, historian Michael Sharma, architect Norman Foster, retailer Philip Green, or businessman Richard Branson?.
One of the most recognised people in the country is journalist Jeremy Clarkson.
His passion for strong opinions on expensive cars has won him a national media position, but in his print journalism he often flies the flag for British engineers and British engineering higher than anyone else.
"Depending on your point of view, his motormouth persona either popularises or trivialises the complex issues of engineering and their contribution to the world", according to Barnes.
"But let it be said that love him or loathe him, he gives dry technical subjects public appeal".
"For this he should be applauded".
"Perhaps we should merge engineering with entertainment - engitainment if you will - and push TV executives to create a couple of 'celebrity engineers'".
"They'd be more entertainer than engineer, but perhaps they would do for technology what celebrity chefs have done for British cuisine".
"There are precedents: Stephenson and Brunell, Barnes-Wallis and Whittle, who in their day were embraced by the public".
"And we are nearly there now with TV programmes like The Great Egg Race and Scrapheap Challenge; we just need to shift the balance slightly more towards appreciating the technology and the engineers".
"If we are to solve many of the problems facing the human race, mechanical engineers will have to play a major role".
"Mechanical engineers created the industrial revolution, enabled global trade in Victorian times, created a new world order for the Edwardians, lead the development of aircraft and the push into space".
"Their role today and tomorrow is just as vital and a little more recognition would be appropriate and would undoubtedly help secure some economic certainty for the future".
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Other Parker-Origa stories
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Parker-Origa protects drives against sticky fluids
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Precision Dippings Marketing, which makes dip-moulded rubber and latex products, has used linear actuators from Parker-Origa to upgrade a semi-automated line to full automation. -
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Rodless pneumatic drive has integrated guide
Parker-Origa has developed a rodless pneumatic drive with an integrated guide, providing a compact, cost-effective, ready-to-run linear motion system.
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