Suppose the World Were Already Lost'': Worst Case Design and the Engineering Imagination at ...

23 Pages·2014·0.91 MB·English

by  Matthew Wisnioski

Engineering Studies
ISSN: 1937-8629 (Print) 1940-8374 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/test20
“Suppose the World Were Already Lost”: Worst
Case Design and the Engineering Imagination at
Harvey Mudd College
Matthew Wisnioski
To cite this article: Matthew Wisnioski (2014) “Suppose the World Were Already Lost”: Worst
Case Design and the Engineering Imagination at Harvey Mudd College, Engineering Studies,
6:2, 65-86, DOI: 10.1080/19378629.2014.931407
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19378629.2014.931407
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EngineeringStudies,2014
Vol.6,No.2,65–86,http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19378629.2014.931407
“SupposetheWorldWereAlreadyLost”:WorstCaseDesignandthe
EngineeringImaginationatHarveyMuddCollege
MatthewWisnioski∗
DepartmentofScienceandTechnologyinSociety,VirginiaTech,331LaneHall,Blacksburg,
VA24061,USA
5 (Received20December2013;finalversionreceived1March2014)
1
0
2
r Thisarticleinvestigatestheorigins,goals,andoutcomesofmoderndesign-basedengi-
e
b neering education in the USA by analyzing an interdisciplinary project that asked
m
students to collaboratively prepare for nuclear holocaust. Project NOAH, conducted
e
pt atHarveyMuddCollege,apioneeringinstitutioninstudent-centeredengineeringedu-
e
S cation, generated national publicity and established an approach to design pedagogy
6 that was observed, appropriated, and developed in parallel elsewhere. In addition to
1
3 anexplorationoftheColdWartransformationsofthemeaningofdesigninUSengi-
1
7: neeringeducation,ProjectNOAHoffersthreeinsightsfortoday’seffortstocultivate
0 students’design imagination. First, it reveals how the project’s creators conceived of
at interdisciplinary problem-based design education as “good” engineering amid com-
]
s peting institutional, pedagogical, and societal contestations about the future of the
e
ri profession. Second, it highlights the persistence of individual and collective tensions
a
br encounteredbyeducatorsandstudentsengagedin“realworld”designcurricula.Third,
Li theproject’sdirectivetopreservecultureinthewakeofahuman-made“worstcase”
h disasterilluminatestheknottedrelationshipbetweendominantpracticesofAmerican
c
Te engineering,thereformerswhoseektoalterthem,andthenatureoftechnologyitself.
a
ni Keywords: creativity; imagination; design; interdisciplinarity; worst cases; Harvey
gi MuddCollege;nuclearwar;engineeringeducation;scientifiction;systemsengineering;
r
Vi WarrenWilson;problem-basedlearning;disaster
[
y
b
d
e
d TheSwissFamilyRobinson—that’swhatwe’llcallourselves.(KurtVonnegut,Cat’sCradle)1
a
o
nl
w
o
D Introduction
TeamCwasafraidofthecockroaches.Theywill“flourishintheabsenceoftheirnatural
warm blooded enemies,” the group reported, and would be a problem when returning to
thesurface.TeamBenvisioned300,000dinners.“Foodsubstitutessuchasalgaecouldbe
used,”theyposited,but“peopleusedtoregularfoodwouldrejectthesubstituteandpossibly
becomementallydisturbed.”TeamAgottotheheartofthematter:“theselectionof250
from170millionpeoplewillundoubtedlybeahardtask,forunliketechnology,thereare
noexactmeasurementsthatcanbedeterminedforahumanbeing.”2Suchweretheburdens
ofmid-centuryengineeringstudentsastheylearnedtoinventthefuture.
∗
Email:[email protected]
1Vonnegut,Cat’sCradle,1963,p.276.
2GroupA,ProjectNOAH,1961,p.36;GroupB,ProjectNOAH,1961,p.59;GroupC,ProjectNOAH,
1961,p.4.
©2014Taylor&Francis
66 M.Wisnioski
In1961,HarveyMuddCollege(HMC),thefirstnewengineeringschoolintheUSAin
nearlythreedecades,finallyhaditsfreshmandesignprogramup-and-running.Theschool
had been inaugurated three years prior with an ambitious plan to educate engineers as
liberalinterdisciplinarians.Comparingitselftoexperimentalcollegesofthe1930s,athird
of the curriculum would be devoted to humanities so students could “assume technical
responsibilitywithanunderstandingoftherelationoftechnologytotherestofsociety.”3
Astheconcrete-blockcampusdesignedbyarchitectEdwardDurellStonewasconstructed
aroundthem,theeighty-threemembersoftheclassof1964receivedtheirinstructionsfor
ProjectNOAH4 fromWarrenE.Wilson,HMC’sfirstchairmanofengineering:
Responsiblementhroughouttheworldareworkingtoinsurethatnuclearwarnevertakesplace.
Stillthepossibilityremains,howeverremote,ofacataclysmwhichcouldeliminatehumanlife
5 asweknowit.Wethereforeproposethequestion,“Whatcanmoderntechnologydotoprovide
1 forthesurvivalofhumanculture?”Youarerequestedtostudythefeasibilityofdesigninga
0
2 systemtoassurethesurvivalofanucleusofhumancivilizationand,ifyoudecidethatsucha
er systemisfeasible,topresentapreliminarydesignforit.5
b
m
e
pt Splitintothreeteams,thestudentsheldelectionsforprojectmanagers;interviewedphysi-
e
S cists, anthropologists, and local milkmen; and questioned the nature of humanity. Given
16 highest national priority for acquisition of manpower and materials, teams were required
13 toassuretheircolonywashabitableforatleastacentury,couldaccommodateaminimum
7: of a 100 residents with a 1:1 ratio of males and females, and would be self-sustaining.
0
at At semester’s end, the reports, which averaged 125 pages in length, were graded by fac-
]
s ulty across HMC; evaluated for plausibility by the RAND Corporation; and lauded for
e
ari their creativity in an Associated Press story reprinted in newspapers from the Lubbock
r
b Avalanche-JournaltotheNewYorkTimes.6
Li
h Beyondthesheerattractionofpeeringovertheshouldersofengineeringstudentsasthey
c
e confrontedtechnologicallyinducedannihilationandthenplottedsalvation,ProjectNOAH
T
a offersapowerfulcasestudyforilluminatingthemeaningof“design”inpostwarengineering
ni
gi intheUSAanditsrelevanceforengineeringeducationtoday.
Vir ProjectNOAH’smotivations,execution,andreceptionshowcasestheriseofpedagogical
y [ techniquesforinstillingahybridformofsystemsengineering—explicitlyinterdisciplinary,
d b human-centered,andproblem-based—thatattemptedtomergethecivilian,market–oriented
de practicesofthemainstreamofpre-World-War-IIengineeringdesignwithnewerformsof
a
o computationalengineeringsciences.Scientizationanditsdiscontentsisamajororganizing
nl
w theme of scholarship in the history of engineering in the Cold War era, which tends to
o
D presentacompetingbinarybetweendesigneducationastraditionalist,practicalmanufac-
turing, and engineering science as the emergent modality of military-industrial-academic
research.7Thisconflictmodelisinformedbyandinformsphilosophicalandsocialstudies
ofengineeringbyscholarssuchasLarryBuchiarelli,EugeneFerguson,andWalterVincenti,
3HarveyMuddCollege,Bulletin,1958–1959,1958.
4Thoughitscapitallettersevokedtheera’spenchantforacronyms,“NOAH”wasnotone.
5ConferenceonFreshmanSystemEngineering,AComprehensiveSurveyofFreshmanEngineering
atHarveyMuddCollege,1964,p.44.
6AssociatedPress,“ProjectNOAH,”1961,p.80;AssociatedPress,“83CollegiansonCoastDesign
aSurvivalColonytoKeepCivilizationAliveforaCentury,”1961,p.117.
7Layton,“AmericanIdeologiesofScienceandEngineering,”1976;Kline,“Construing‘Technology’
as‘AppliedScience,”’1995;Seely,“TheOtherRe-engineeringofEngineeringEducation,”1999.
EngineeringStudies 67
whoseektodefinedesignastheessenceofengineeringdistinctfromthesciences.8Project
NOAHprovidesawindowintothetensionbetween“design”and“science”asexperienced
byeducatorswhoattemptedtosynthesizethetwodomainsatthemomentwhenarguments
abouttheirdifferenceswereworkedoutintechnicalpractice.
Project NOAH additionally sheds light on design as the terrain for interdisciplinary
exchanges that connect engineering to a range of other professions from architecture to
sociology.9 These are issues of relevance to a growing body of literature in science and
technologystudies(STS)anddesignstudies,particularlytorecenthistoricalaccountsofthe
“designmethods”movementthatemergedamidtheintersectionsofengineering,industrial
design, architecture, and urban planning between the 1950s and 1970s.10 The common
assumptioninthismulti-disciplinarydomainwasthatthemakingofthings—whethertransit
systems, spacecraft, or solar cookers—had become too complex for existing techniques
15 which failed to account for interactions between systems and users. Problem solving in
0
2 this environment required collaborative teams and new vision. But, from there, methods
r
e divergedamidsquabblesoverwhowastoassumetheidentityofthedesigner.Moreover,
b
m educators committed to an encompassing philosophy of design struggled to implement
e
pt curriculathatachievedmeaningfulengagementofstudentsandcolleaguesacrossacademic
e
S unitsandindividualplansofstudy.
6
1 Finally,byinvitingstudentstostageadialogbetweendisasterandredemptioninorderto
3
1 cultivatetheirdesignimagination,ProjectNOAHmakesexplicittheconnectionsbetween
7:
0 thenormsoftheAmericanengineeringprofessionduringtheColdWarera,theambitionsof
at thereformerswhosawdesigneducationasaprogressivealternative,andthesimultaneously
]
s
e disruptiveandgenerativenatureoftechnologyitself.Iuseacombinationoftwooverlapping
ri
a theoreticallenses—scientifictionandworstcasethinking—tomakevisibletheselinkages.
r
b
Li Thenotionofscientifiction,developedbyBrunoLatourinhisstudyofthetransitsystem
h Aramis, identifies an underlying structural similarity between narrative fiction and even
c
Te the most mundane of engineering projects.11 The concept of “worst cases,” advanced by
nia sociologistLeeClarke,pointstothevalueof“possiblistic”analysisasatoolforexploring
gi the causes of disasters from 9/11 to Hurricane Katrina and potentially mitigating future
r
Vi system failures. These lenses share a common emphasis on the role of the imaginary in
[
y expertthinkingatthecoreofProjectNOAH’spedagogicalgoals.
b
d ProjectNOAHthusoffersasetoftextualartifactsfromwhichtoreadthepoliticsofdesign
e
d inengineeringeducationthroughthecaseofanovelpostwarinstitutionasitengagedwitha
a
nlo nationalnetworkofeducatorsandpractitioners.Onethat,whilepremisedoneschatological
w vision, was designed to develop engineers for the improvement of everyday and extreme
o
D livingalike.
MoversofWorlds
ItisdifficulttoconveytheexcitementfeltbyHMC’sfounders,whosawthemselvesatthe
forefrontofanationaltransformationinengineeringeducation,withoutbeingaccusedof
8Bucciarelli,DesigningEngineers,1994;Ferguson,EngineeringandtheMind’sEye,1992;Vincenti,
WhatEngineersKnowandHowTheyKnowIt,1990.
9See,e.g.NieusmaandRiley,“DesignsonDevelopment,”2010;Tatum,“TheChallengeofRespon-
sibleDesign,”2004;Irani,etal.,“PostcolonialComputing,”2010;Light,“TakingGamesSeriously,”
2008;Anker,FromBauhaustoEcohouse,2010,pp.68–82.
10E.g.JonesandThornley,ConferenceonDesignMethods,1963;Upitis,“NatureNormative,”2008;
Llach,“BuildersoftheVision,”2012.
11Latour,Aramis,1996.
68 M.Wisnioski
nostalgia. Made possible by the greater LosAngeles military-industrial economy, HMC
was located fifty miles westward in Claremont, the Golden State’s take on a sleepy New
England village. Faculty were lured from senior positions nationwide by high salaries,
mountainviews,collaborativeopportunitywithHMC’ssisterinstitutions,andthepromise
of a blank slate. HMC’s first president Joseph Platt was an MIT Radiation Lab alumnus
formerlyoftheUniversityofRochesterwherehehadconstructedasynchrocyclotronand
directedthephysicsdepartment.Sharingfaithinthelinkbetweenmoralandtechnological
progress,manyonthefacultyhadQuakerroots,suchasmathematicianRobertJameswho
arrivedfromBerkeleyafterrefusingtosignanOathofLoyalty.
ThepromiseofliberaltechnologicaltrainingwasespeciallystrongforHMC’shumanists,
whosangthepraisesofscience,technology,anditsmakersasagentsofdemocraticprogress.
Afterservingonthecollege’sexternalplanningcommittee,historianoftechnologyJohnRae
5 leftMITtojointhefaculty.WilliamDavenport,thechairmanofHMC’sEnglishdepartment,
1
0
2 formerlyoftheUniversityofSouthernCalifornia,offeredthemosteffusiveinterpretation
r
e ofthecollege’sambition.“Tomorrow’sengineer,”hewroteina1967humanitiestextbook
b
m forengineers,
e
pt
e
S will have the fine attitude of the creative man…will need more than knowledge of funda-
6 mentals;hemustbeflexible,fluentandoriginal….ThemodernRenaissancefindshimstill
1
3 the“artistandempiric,”butalsothepsychologist,thesociologist,theeconomistandinmany
7:1 respectsthemoverofworlds.12
0
at HMC’sfoundersmetin1958tomapoutacurriculumconsistingofthreecomponentsin
]
es equalbalance:(1)educationinthephysicalsciencesmatchingthenation’stopuniversities
ri
a in rigor; (2) exploration in the liberal arts on par with peers such asAmherst, Pomona,
r
b
Li and Swarthmore; and (3) a unique “system engineering” curriculum that would produce
h problemsolvinggeneralistsratherthancivil,electrical,ormechanicalengineers.Astrong
c
Te base in science and mathematics was essential to modern engineering, according to Platt
nia andthetrustees,butHMCdidnotwanttoproduceappliedscientists.Thehumanitiesand
gi socialscienceswouldfoster“intellectualpenetration”“analyticalability”and“values,”to
r
Vi bedeployedinengineeringdesign(Fig.1).
[
y As HMC’s faculty and trustees began teaching the first class of forty-eight students,
b
d theyfacedaproblem—theylackedanengineeringfaculty.Ithadbeenrelativelyeasyfor
e
d presidentPlatttofindtop-flightchemists,humanists,mathematicians,physicists,andsocial
a
nlo scientistscommittedtoHMC’smission.Findingachairmanfortheengineeringdepartment
w whobalancedadistinguishedcareerwithHMC’sholisticgoalsprovedmorechallenging.
o
D Platt spoke informally to 130 candidates, interviewed thirty, and invited ten to campus
beforeidentifyingWarrenE.Wilsonasthefirstchairmanofengineering.13
The difficulty of establishing an engineering program was a local manifestation of a
national debate over the future of the profession.As a consequence ofWorldWar II and
theriseoftheColdWarstate,therewerenearlyamillionengineersintheUSAby1960,a
four-foldincreasefrom1945.Theaerospaceindustry,whichhadoperatedasacraftenter-
prise prior to the war, had grown to produce some of the world’s largest technological
corporations(whichweredeeplyentangledwithgovernmentagencies)thatemployedover
twomillionAmericans.Engineersincreasinglyrequiredgraduatetrainingtoperformspe-
cializedoperationsonlargeteams.Thisdramaticgrowthalteredthepracticesandidentity
12DavenportandRosenthal,Engineering,1967,quotedinBrightandDym,“GeneralEngineeringat
HarveyMudd,”2004.
13Platt,HarveyMuddCollege,1994,pp.110–111.
EngineeringStudies 69
5
1
0
2
r
e
b
m
e
pt
e
S
6
1
3 Figure 1. Trainingholisticengineers—HMC’sfoundingcurriculum.
1 Source: Harvey Mudd College, Curriculum Study, 1958, p. 35. Courtesy: Special collections,
7:
0 Honnold/MuddLibraryoftheClaremontColleges.
at
]
s
e
ri of engineers but generated significant dilemmas, among them the simultaneous embrace
a
br bypolicymakersandeducatorsofscientificresearchwithacompetingdesiretomaintain
Li
h professionalidentificationsdistinctfromthatofthescientist,atensionexacerbatedbythe
ec diversificationandspecializationofengineeringmanpower.14
T
a Debatesaboutthepropercharacteristicsofmodernengineeringwereespeciallyheated
ni amongeducators.Reformerssoughttomodernizeaprofessionsteepedinpracticalmethods
gi
r such as engineering graphics and machine shop training. Advocates of the engineering
Vi
[ sciencesarguedthatthephysicalsciencesandcalculusshouldconstitutethefoundationof
y
b engineering.Manyeducators,especiallyinland-grantcollegesandvocationalschoolsthat
d
e hadgrownintoregionaluniversities,resistedthetrend.Thefaultlinescametotheforein
d
oa responsetotheinfluential1955ReportonEvaluationofEngineeringEducationproducedby
nl theAmericanSocietyforEngineeringEducation.Itsprimaryauthor,UniversityofFlorida
w
o professor Linton Grinter, called for an overhaul of the engineering curriculum toward a
D
foundationinscienceandadvancedmathematics.15
Few educators were better positioned to navigate the countervailing pressures of
American engineering as well as Warren E. Wilson. He came to HMC at the end of a
journeyman’s climb up the administrative ranks. His career straddled the divide between
industry-orientedtrainingandtheengineeringsciences,forgingapaththatwouldbediffi-
culttoemulateastheengineeringprofessoriateacademicized.HereceivedhisBSincivil
engineering from Lehigh in 1928 and worked in industry before earning a masters from
Cornell. He then headed west as an instructor at the South Dakota School of Mines. He
wasbrieflyassistantprofessorofsanitaryengineeringatTulane,butreturnedtograduate
14Wisnioski,EngineersforChange,2012,pp.15–39.
15Grinter, “Summary of the Report on Evaluation of Engineering Education,” 1955; Wisnioski,
“LiberalEducationHasFailed,”2009,pp.753–764.
70 M.Wisnioski
school—atCaltechforamastersinmechanicalengineeringin1939,andtotheUniversity
ofIowaforaPhDinhydrodynamicsin1940.Hesubsequentlywasappointedheadofthe
ColoradoSchoolofMines’sdepartmentofmechanics;leftin1941tochairthedepartment
offluidmechanicsattheArmourResearchFoundation;and,in1943,becamepresidentof
theSouthDakotaSchoolofMines,wherehespentadecademodernizingthecurriculum
and enhancing the scientific content of the vocational school. Throughout his career he
workedasaconsultantfortheminingindustry,wherehedevelopedatheoryofthebehav-
ior of particulate matter in fluid flow for mineral processing applications.16 In the 1940s
and 1950s, he placed special emphasis on bringing research to design. His book Positive
DisplacementPumpsandFluidMotorspositionedhisworkascomposedof“scientifically
correct”and“rigorous”solutionsderivedfrom“basicprinciples”asopposedto“adesign
handbook,” which was more typical for such a subject.17 He left Rapid City in 1953 to
5 serveasdirectorofengineeringandscienceattheUSOfficeofOrdinanceResearchonthe
1
0
2 campus of Duke University. In 1954, he becameWestinghouse Professor of Engineering
r
e EducationatPennStateandwastaskedtostudynationaltrendsinengineeringeducation,
b
m surveying800educatorsontheirattitudesaboutcurricularchangeinimmediateresponse
e
pt totheGrinterReport.18In1956,heagainwasonthemove,acceptingthepositionofdean
e
S and then president at Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute. Three years later,Wilson came to HMC
6
1 with a recommendation from Grinter himself. Incidentally, president Platt learned while
3
1 interviewingWilsonthathehadbeenunderconsiderationforPlatt’sownjob.19
7:
0 Experience spanning the elite and parochial spectrum of the profession shaped Wil-
at son’s conception of who engineers should be and what they should know. Engineers, he
]
es argued, were above all designers. His vision of the design engineer united the elements
ri
a of civilian engineering oriented toward low-cost production with the research-focused
r
b
Li “military-aerospace”marketorientedtowardthecreationofnovel,complexsystemsreliant
h on computational analysis and electronic feedback.20 In 1965, he published the textbook
c
Te ConceptsofEngineeringSystemDesignforfreshmanengineeringstudents,whichdescribed
nia systemengineeringas“creativedesigninthebroadestsense.”Creativitydispelledtheorga-
gi nization man image and distinguished engineers from scientists and technicians. It also
r
Vi contributedtovisionsofprofessionalcolonizationinwhichtheengineer’sproblem-solving
[
y techniquescouldofferuniversalapplicability.“Theconceptofsystemengineering,”Wil-
b
d sonwroteinhis1965textbook,“isnewandisthemostimportantrecentachievementof
e
d engineering,notonlyasatechniqueofengineeringdesignandcreativeprofessionaleffort
a
nlo inourtechnologybutalsoasadisciplinewiththepotentialofmanyapplicationsinother
w fields.”Itsrange,heclaimed,was“essentiallylimitless.”21
o
D Wilson was part of an important and understudied group of reformers who blended
“systemengineering”and“engineeringdesign”towalkalinebetweenengineeringscience
and more traditional modes of engineering. Though historians of technology and histo-
rians of the Cold War have highlighted the significance of systems analysis in postwar
America,existinginterpretationstendtopaintahomogenouspictureoftechnocraticratio-
nalityachievedthroughcomputationaltechniques.Buttheoverlappingdomainsofdesign
andsystemsengineeringcontainedavarietyofmotivationsandtechniqueswithdiffering
16Wilson,“Pipe-LineFlowofSolidsinSuspension,”1942;Wilson,“LaunderDesign,”1943.
17Wilson,PositiveDisplacementPumpsandFluidMotors,1950,p.vi.
18Wilson,OpinionsofEngineeringEducators,1956,p.53.
19Platt,HarveyMuddCollege,1994,p.131.
20Wilson,ConceptsofEngineeringSystemDesign,1965,pp.4–5.
21Wilson,ConceptsofEngineeringSystemDesign,1965,pp.9–10.
EngineeringStudies 71
conceptionsoftheexpert’sroleinproblemsolving.22Wilsonparticipatedintheestablish-
mentofanetworkoflikemindeddesignadvocateswhosescopeandgoalscanbegleaned
fromthe1962ConferenceonEngineeringDesignEducation.Theeventwasorganizedby
Allen B. Rosenstein (director of UCLA’s Ford Foundation-funded Educational Develop-
mentProgram),MorrisAsimow(authorofoneofthemostwidelyadaptednewtextbooks
onsystemsdesign),anddesignfacultyfromStanford,Berkeley,Purdue,MIT,CaseInstitute
ofTechnology,andCarnegieInstituteofTechnology.23 Thisnetworkofdesignengineers
wereinthemainmid-careerfacultywithhybridexperiencesinindustryandacademiathat
resembledWilson’s;thatis,theyhadPhDsandworkedincentersofengineeringscience
buttheypreservedanotionoftheengineerasamultifacetedprofessionalandmanager,and
hadreceivedtheirinitialtraininginindustrial-eradesignengineering.TheUCLAeventand
otherslikeitintheUSAandBritainalsodemonstratedtheopennessofdesignengineering
15 tomethodsfromarchitecture,computerscience,industrialdesign,andthesocialsciences,
0
2 manifest in participants such as Stanford’s Robert H. McKim, author of the influential
r
e (andpossiblylysergicaciddiethylamideinspired)ExperiencesinVisualThinkingandthe
b
m famedindustrialdesignerHenryDreyfuss.24Throughtheseconnections,thesystemsdesign
e
pt engineers were important players in the interdisciplinary space that became know as the
e
S “designmethods”or“designresearch”movement.Theseengineers(andthebroaderdesign
6
1 methodsmovement)emphasizedthecasestudymethodofproblem-basedlearningthrough
3
1 systematic analysis that drew upon engineering graphics, computational techniques, and
7:
0 engineeringsciencesalikeasanyparticularcasedictated.
at WhenWilsonarrivedinClaremontin1959,hesettoworkconvincingthescientistsand
]
s
e humanistsatHMCtointegratealldimensionsofastudent’scourseworktoward“comprehen-
ari sivesystemdesign.”25Thesametensionsthatexistednationallyshapedlocaldisagreements
r
b
Li abouthowtoproceedwithHMC’sengineeringprogram.Wilson,however,hadtheadvan-
h tage of being able to convince his small cohort of colleagues individually and to use his
c
Te ambitious students as agents in the process. He helped HMC implement a two-semester
nia freshmansequence.Thefirstsemesterdispensedwithtraditionalintroductionstoengineer-
gi ing drawing, whichWilson called the “work of the technician,” and instead gave weekly
r
Vi lectureswithallstudentsinayear’sclass,heldsmallgroupdiscussions,assignedcalculus
[
y programmingexercisesonthecampus’sIBM1620,andhadstudentspreparedesignsfor
b
d commonsubsystemssuchasdevicesforsensingtemperatureandcontrollingtheflowofgas
e
d in a pipeline.The second semester was dedicated to a collaborative open-ended problem
a
nlo meanttodrawoneveryfacetoftheproblemthatHMC’sfacultycouldoffer.
w ProjectNOAH,insum,wasconceivedofatatransitionalmomentinengineeringedu-
o
D cationintheUSA.Foroveradecade,professionalleaders,accreditingbodies,andanew
generationofengineeringeducatorshadworkedtomaketheengineeringsciencesthestan-
dardforengineeringeducation.Atthesametime,ahostofdesignadvocateswerebeginning
toresurrectandredefinedesigninawaythatdidnotthrowthebabyoutwiththebathwater.
22Thisvarietypersistsincontemporarysystemsengineering.AkeelandBell,“DiscoursesofSystems
Engineering,”2013.
23UniversityofCalifornia,LosAngeles,ProceedingsoftheSecondConferenceonEngineeringDesign
Education, 1962. There were a number of new design textbooks at this moment, e.g. Goode and
Machol,SystemEngineering,1957;Hall,AMethodologyforSystemsEngineering,1962;Asimow,
IntroductiontoDesign,1962.
24McKim, Experiences inVisualThinking, 1972. On the LSD connections see Markoff,What the
DormouseSaid,2005.Dreyfussismostfamousforhisnotionof“humanfactors,”see,e.g.Dreyfuss,
DesigningforPeople,1955.
25Wilson,“EngineeringProblemsatHarveyMuddCollege,”1963.
72 M.Wisnioski
HMC’sraisond’êtrewastomakeengineerswho,whilescientificallyexpert,weresocietal
leaders with interdisciplinary training responsible for designing technological systems to
manageanuncertainfuture.
TheDesignImagination
Whatdoesitsaythatteachingengineerstobecomeprofessionalsinsociety’sservicebegan
withnuclearholocaustandthegrantingofbiblicalpowertoitspupils?Inamilieuthatgave
usOnThermonuclearWarandFailsafe,wemightemphasizeinProjectNOAHtheubiqui-
touspresenceandspecificinculcationofwhatPaulBoyercalls“nuclearconsciousness”in
thenewestranksofthemilitary-industrialapparatus.26OrwemightfindparallelstoSharon
Ghamari-Tabrizi’sdescriptionofHomelandSecurityscenariosas“lethalfantasy”inwhich
5 studentsengagedin“thecontemplationofnightmaresratherthanidentifiablesocial,polit-
1
0 ical,andclimatologicalrealities.”27Likewise,wecouldexplorehowProjectNOAH’sOld
2
er Testament overtones resonate with David Noble’s analysis of the role of religious vision
b
m in technological production.28 To fully understand the pedagogical intentions of Project
e
pt NOAH,however,weneedalsolookbeyonddeath,paranoia,andmegalomaniatofocuson
e
S theroleoftheimaginaryHMC’scurriculumwasdesignedtoinspire.
6
1 ProjectNOAH’ssalientfeaturewasitsimmateriality.Thoughitanticipatedtheconclusion
3
1 toDr.Strangelove,thefacultyatHMCdidnotundertaketheassignmenttopreparestudents
07: foranapplicationtheybelievedthefutureengineerswouldencounterintheirlifetimes.It
at mightseemcounterintuitivetotrainengineersinthismannersincetheirdistinguishingskill
]
s setwassupposedtobetheabilitytosolverealworldproblems.Whynotinsteadusehistorical
e
ari case studies of archetypical design solutions or of famous innovations?29 Alternatively,
r
Lib Wilsoncouldhavehadstudentscollaborateonlocalcommunityneeds.Indeed,thesewere
h commonlypracticedapproachestoengineeringdesign.
c
e Bycultivatingspeculativecreativityandglobal-scalethinkingattheexpenseofimmedi-
T
a ateapplicability,ProjectNOAHintroducedHMCstudentstoaqualityofengineeringthat
ni
gi BrunoLatourhasdescribedasscientifiction.Technologicalprojects,heargues,areinher-
Vir ently“fictions”andengineersare“novelists.”30Itisthisimaginativeprocessthatseparates
y [ analysisindesignfromanalysisinscience.Engineersmakeprojectsintoobjectsthrough
b
d acomplexprocessoftranslatingmaterialresources,technicalknowledge,andtheagendas
de and needs of multiple stakeholders into coherent narratives.They do so, moreover, in an
a
o environmentinwhichthesediverseactorsandagentscompeteforthatnarrativetoincor-
nl
w porate their point of view.The specific outcome of a project thus is highly dependent on
o
D howitsdesignerscontextualize(orfailtocontextualize)itsvarioushumanandnon-human
elements.31
Engineering educators in the 1950s and 1960s increasingly saw problems deliberately
resembling science fiction as catalysts for instilling this imaginative quality of design in
26Boyer,BytheBomb’sEarlyLight,1994.
27Ghamari-Tabrizi,“LethalFantasies,”2006,p.22.
28Noble,TheReligionofTechnology,1997.Alongtheselines,itisnotablethatProjectNOAHwas
executedthesameyearWalterMiller,Jr.’sreligiousexplorationofhumankind’stechnologicalcon-
ditionCanticleforLiebowitz wonsciencefiction’sHugoAward.Miller,ACanticleforLiebowitz,
1959.
29See,forexample,thewidelydistributedcurricularcasestudiesofUCLA’sEducationalDevelopment
Program(EDP),suchasEducationalDevelopmentProgram,“TheWrightBrothers’Airplane,”1964.
30Latour,Aramis,1996,pp.23–24
31Latour,Aramis,1996,pp.133–134,137–138.
EngineeringStudies 73
students. Design advocates lamented that students entered college predisposed to rigid,
unambiguous situations or that they adopted the disposition from their peers. This was
exacerbatedbyincreasedemphasisonanalyticalproblemsolvinginengineeringassociated
with the physical sciences. Mechanical engineering professor John Arnold at MIT and
Stanford,forexample,recognizedtheframe-breakingpowerofspeculation.Takingstudents
outsidetheirworldtrainedthemind’seyetoaddressfantasticproblemssothatstudentscould
solve real ones with new vision. In ProjectArcturus IV, for example, students designed
vehicles for a race of aliens evolved from birds with helium filled bones, three eyes, and
X-rayvisiononaplanetwitheleventimesearth’sgravityinaculturewithnuclearpowerbut
noelectronics.Studentsolutionsincludedthe“eggomobile,”designedtosellbyappealing
tothesecurityoftheeggfromwhichtheArcturianshadbeenborn.32
Aliens from distant planets were one thing. Preparing for nuclear holocaust was an
5 exercise of the imaginary that forced confrontation with deeper truths about engineering
1
0
2 practice.
r
e “Suppose the world were already lost,” the character Edward Hobson, Sr. posits in
b
m RichardPowers’sPrisoner’sDilemma,ameditationonthealterationofthehumanimag-
e
pt inary brought about by the atomic age.33 In the novel, Powers juxtaposes theTrinity test
e
S andWaltDisneythroughthelifeofHobson,whoseekstobuildamodelofaperfecttown
6
1 withanalternativehistorythaterasesthetragediesofthetwentiethcentury.34What,Powers
3
1 asks,canbelearnedaboutthehumanconditioninattemptstobuildaworldpicturethatis
7:
0 bothhyper-realisticandincorruptiblebytherealitiesoftheColdWararmsrace?
at SpeculationsofthissorthaveanacademicchampioninthesociologistLeeClarke’sadvo-
]
es cacyforworstcasethinkingasameansofpreparingforfuturedisastersandinterrogating
ri
a thepowerdynamicsandassumptionsbehindthedesignofexistingtechnologicalsystems.
r
b
Li Inthispossibilisticmodeofinquiry,theanalystisconfrontednotwithcalculationsoflike-
h lihood(typicallyusedtojustifytheconstructionofriskytechnologicalsystems),butrather
c
Te “imagination stretch” that can drive progressive innovation. Speculative thinking about
nia socio-technicalsystemsisdiagnostic,Clarkeargues,revealinginsightsabout“howsociety
gi works, and fails to work…about the imagination, about politics, and about the wielding
r
Vi ofpower.”Thisanalysisisespeciallyrelevantwhenappliedtothedomainofengineering
[
y design.Worst cases live in the mind, he writes, and “inherently involve people’s consid-
b
d erations of the value of other people, their sense of mastery, or their feelings of power.”
e
d Suchimaginaries,however,arenotuniversalorpurelyindividualistic,thus“lookingatideas
a
nlo aboutworstcasesisanopportunitytolookatsocialimaginations.”35
w Thecomplementaryconceptsofscientifictionandworstcasethinkinghelptoreconstruct
o
D Wilson’sintentionsandtointerprettheresultsofhisexperiment.Forone,theyhighlightthe
dialecticbetweenhyper-realityandfantasy.InsummarizingtheresultsofProjectNOAH,
Wilson argued that: “stimulation of creative effort and interest in engineering are best
obtainedbyboldstrokesinsettingdesigntasksratherthanbyinsistenceuponmeticulous
attentiontotrivialdetailsoftechniquesandskillssuchasdraftsmanship.”36Butthiswasa
misreadingoftheactualreportstheNOAHteamsgenerated,whichreinforcedapowerful
synthesisofboldfictionalstrokeswithmeticulousattentiontosuch“trivial”details.
32Pandora,“RedesigningtheEngineeringMind,”2006.
33Powers,PrisonersDilemma,1988,p.155.
34PowerswasLatour’smusefortheconceptofscientifiction.Latour,Aramis,1996,pp.vii–x.
35Clarke,WorstCases,2006,pp.ix,5,21,130,144–146.
36Wilson,“EngineeringProblemsatHarveyMuddCollege,”1963,p.463.