Engineering in the Media (I)- Codename: Kids Next Door

All this stuff with the Zen prototyping, and this talk about engineering in the media reminded me of this kids show called "Codename: Kids Next Door". Basically, the cartoon is about 5 children who are part of this huge secret organization run completely by children, and they complete various missions James Bond style. Of course, every spy needs their arsenal of gadgets, and these kids are no exception. Below are examples of the weaponry used in the series:



Hmm...kinda looks like what was going on in studio recently - grabbing whatever is at hand and making something to solve a problem of some sort, in this case, "high-tech" gadgets. Of course, these objects actually work in the series as it's fiction, but who says that these items couldn't be (albeit strange) prototype for a children toy?

Of course, only a select few of these items are created on the fly in the middle of a fight or in a workshop at headquarters, so the design process is neglected onscreen. There's no doubt that there is an element of engineering in these items, but it appears that the media has once again neglected the engineer (remember, these kids are part of a much larger organization, so any designs could be transferred to other divisions in the association).

Maybe engineers aren't deemed cool enough for television? Perhaps the perception of an engineer is that of a glorified technician, or just builds bridges (*Cough*Civil*cough*)? Maybe I'll find more answers after looking more closely at other examples of how engineers are portrayed - I have a few ideas right now, but I'll save judgment until I get a better idea of what things are like (not to mention I need to start preparing for that biology test later this week).

My best guess right now is that they don't want to encourage the children to take things apart and cause more chaos around the house.

Engineers and the Media

This is going to be my first blog post ever and I pretty much failed English class, so bear with me.

Now the other day in one of those tutorials, I had to opportunity to ask Jason Foster a question about our portfolios. In the conversation, he mentioned something about the lack of engineers in today’s media. What he said was true, I couldn’t think of a show with an engineer as a major character off the top of my head. Most of the important characters were more of a scientist then an engineer.

I have to admit, I never even wanted to be an engineer when I was small; I was leaning towards being a scientist after watching loads of Bill Nye the Science Guy or The Magic School Bus. I thought that I might just be the odd man out, but after doing a quick Workopolis search on what children aged 5-19 want to be when they grow up, the categories were along the lines of police officer/firefighter, athlete, doctor, teacher, or musician [1]. The word “engineer” never even came up. Why?

The question led me to think of one of the slides that were shown in a Praxis lecture about how engineers are portrayed as people in plaid shirts and glasses holding a clipboard in a car commercial. The problem here is obvious, engineers are not stylish. Sure, we have a hardhat, but so do construction workers. Scientists, doctors, firefighters, police officers, athletes; all of these professions have cool outfits from lab coats to uniforms. Any reasonable 10 year old would prefer to wear a lab coat holding vials of reactive chemicals instead of carrying a clipboard and doing math. Where do these stereotypes come from? The TV, of course.

A quick Google search on “engineer” and “scientist” shows the stereotype. Seriously, what job looks more hardcore here?

Now of course choosing a profession based on what they look like is quite shallow and stupid, but that is not what a producer of a movie/TV series would care about. How would a sci-fi show fit into the storyline a subplot about how much money the engineer saved in building that warp drive through some optimization technique among subplots of alien infestations? Clearly, the scientists analyzing the dead alien would get more screen time, they are just cooler.

So basically, if engineers want some time on the screen, they need to make whatever they do look cool. Even though I couldn’t come up with “cool” engineers off the top of my head, Google was able to give a few pointers:


The engineers working for Dell sure knows where it’s at. They take away the dirty, greasy, and loud environments that engineers are usually portrayed as working in.

Crazy engineer from the anime movie Steamboy that is comparable in coolness to that of a mad scientist.

So then Foster brought up an interesting point; do engineers want to be portrayed the way scientists are? Or should an engineer be someone who hides in the background and keeps civilized life possible while the general population go wondering about?

In my opinion, engineers are where they are supposed to be. The general population should have some knowledge about how things work, like how electricity flows through wires in a computer. However, engineers go deeper than that, to the point where we must not only understand the science, but be able to use it to build or rebuild things we take for granted. Engineers do not need to know the details of fashion design, or landscaping, or how to paint walls, so why should a fashion designer, landscaper, or painter know the intricacies of engineering?

Having science in the limelight instead of engineering allows for people to get a broad understanding of scientific concepts without having to wade through the details, which I think would make science be better accepted by society.

[1] http://www.workopolis.com/work.aspx?action=Transfer&View=Content/Common/AboutUs/NewsReleasesView&lang=EN&file=News20070828