ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, May 23, 1996 TAG: 9605230011
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-16 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CRAIG A. ROGERS
IT WAS with much dismay that I read your May 4 editorial (``How to succeed by failing") and the seemingly disparaging tone of your account of Virginia Tech's efforts in the public schools. Your comments were based solely on reading an article from a Richmond newspaper on Tour de TECH - an annual exposition for Virginia schoolchildren to show the diversity, usefulness and fun of science and engineering - rather than on any direct contact.
No one from your newspaper accepted our invitations to attend Tour de TECH and meet Dr. Richard Klein. What would you have seen had you attended? Aside from numerous hands-on demonstrations throughout the university - including entomology, adhesion science, nutrition, chemistry and educational technologies - Klein performed an experiment using rockets attached to a bicycle to illustrate why hundreds of novice motorcyclists lose their lives each year: In order to turn a bicycle or a motorcycle to the right, you must ``steer'' the handlebars to the left!
This fact may not be so obvious on a bicycle, but can be so important on a 500-pound motorcycle in a panic situation.
You also would have seen his demonstrations of bicycles showing that the common science-book explanation (and the explanation found in David Macauly's ``The Way Things Work'') of why bicycles with two wheels can stay upright is incorrect.
It's important to also note that one of the basic tenets of engineering is that we're unable to advance the state of the art through our success. It's by learning from our failures that we propel technology forward (see ``To Engineer is Human'' by Henry Petroski). Hence, the reason we read so often of the important search for the "black box" after an airplane crash, and why the National Transportation Board is so diligent in investigating train and automobile crashes of odd circumstances. We make the world a safer place by learning from failures. Yes, we do indeed "succeed by failing.''
It's a shame you decided to write an editorial without any first-hand knowledge of the event. Perhaps you can succeed by appreciating your failure - a fundamental journalistic failure to be sure.
Perhaps most disturbing to me, however, is that if your editorial board needed to fill a few inches of space on your page, you could have decided to acknowledge the faculty, staff and students of Tech for organizing a wonderful educational experience. Or you could have documented the innovation of the micro-robots and solid-state stereo speakers that 10 girls from Richmond created during their two days on our campus.
You could have been a positive force for the community, but you chose to be an antagonist of the community. You chose to be disparaging of those who donated time and energy to educate our youth, and for what purpose?
If by chance, it was your intent to be humorous - Dave Barry, you're not.
Craig A. Rogers is professor of mechanical engineering and education at Virginia Tech.
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