No Robots Please!

The following is a short extract from a transcript of one of the workshops. You can read the full script in the book.

Hello, I'm Dr Outten or you can call me Dr Alan. But I'm not a medical doctor so if you're ill or there's something wrong with you, don't come to me! I'm actually a PhD or a science doctor. I'm a bioengineer. Now, can anyone guess what a bioengineer does?

Does he experiment with rats and things and see how their babies grow up?

Hmm that sounds very good, very impressive! Yes?

Do you work with plants?

Yes, yes, we do work with plants.

Do you work with animals?

Yes, very good. I think you've given me better answers than anyone else that I've been doing this workshop with. So a bioengineer is an engineer. Do you all know what an engineer is? An engineer makes things, particularly machines and devices and ‘bio’ comes from biology – so we make things to do with biology with plants and animals. Particularly, I work with things to do with medicine so I might make machines that you'd find in a hospital. Does anyone know a machine you might find in a hospital. Yes?

A magnetic resonance imager.

Or an MRI as it's more commonly known. Hmm, very good!! Can anyone top that?

X-ray.

X-ray. Very good. Just as good. Yes?

That heart-rate thing that goes ping!

Yes an ECG machine or electro-cardiogram. Yes?

An electrocution machine

Hmm & you find them in hospitals do you? Oh I thought you meant to kill someone… actually keep them alive. Yes, very good.

A defribulator.

Yes, that's actually the thing we were talking about. I'm very impressed! So today I'm going to be showing you some of the things that I've been working on and some of the things that other people have been working on. They're all very strange and to do with animals and plants. Now one of research projects I did was to listen to human muscles. Who knew that muscles make sounds?

Me!

Very good! Do you want to hear your muscles make a sound. Yes you do!! Yes you do!! Right, put your hand up in the air, clench your fist, put the pad of your thumb against your ear and clench it hard. Can you hear a sound, like a rumbling sound.

[Murmuring by class]

That's the sound of your muscle. I recorded them and you can tell something about your muscles by the sound they make. Whether you've got strong muscles or weak muscles and if you've got weak muscles then we can do some extra exercises with you.

I can't hear anything.

You have to do it when it's very quiet. Do it when you're at home on your own and see if you can hear your muscles making sounds. So the things I'm going to be talking about today are genetic engineering and nanotechnology. Have you heard of these things?

Yes!

Very good. I'm now going to give you a little bit of an idea of what these things are all about…

Workshop structure

After introducing myself to the children, the remainder of the workshop progresses as follows:

• Firstly, I introduce the children to the world of the microscopic (based on the Eames' Powers of Ten film)
• I introduce the children to present and future concepts including biotechnology, nanotechnology and genetic engineering
• I present a series of ethical “thought experiments” including the pig that wanted to be eaten
• I ask the children to draw their favourite toy, pet or hobby
• I present a series of critical design projects and proposals including my magical milk-making machine
• Finally, I invite the children to design a toy or product of the future bearing in mind some of the innovations and future technologies previously discussed

The full transcript, workshop slides and a lesson plan are available in the resources section.