"They also are not learning the political skills that they will need to have to survive in the corporate world, where career success depends more on how you suck up to authority than on your ability to design or build anything."
Well said Daniel. Working in the aerospace industry for a number of years I sadly can confirm that this is true.
I also agree with your comment on the 'baby-monitor in space' approach. Teachers and Students all to often look for the easy way out / do not do appropriate research and end up with half-baked / restricted / non-working solutions. Taking more time and breaking the project down in more autonomous work-units, with the collaboration of all efforts at the end would probably yield better and more satisfying results for Students and Educators (i.e. voice / repeater function instead of CW Telemetry from yet another beepbox).
I just wonder if AMSAT and some University (MIT or Standford, whatever...) ever considered doing a project together ? Or is ARRISAT considered such a thing ? The Ham community could provide the engineering, knowledge and 'old-school' approach on building a proper satellite, while the Universities could provide fresh ideas, man-power, facilities and funds, while learning a great deal. Or is this a big no-no due to conflict of interest or something ? AMSAT is non-for profit, so that shouldn't be a problem.
Andreas - VK4HHH
________________________________ From: Daniel Schultz n8fgv@usa.net To: amsat-bb@amsat.org Sent: Monday, 24 October 2011 10:13 AM Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: Why should we support AMSAT?
Stefan,
I wasn't trying to diminish the students, but I have worked with a student satellite project where they literally took a chip maker's application note for a baby monitor or cordless telephone transmitter and made a satellite transmitter out of it, and it didn't work on orbit.
I appreciate the students energy and enthusiasm, but in some cases they do have much to learn about RF. I also remember how valuable my amateur radio background was to me when I was an engineering student, when some of my classmates couldn't even read the color bands on a resistor and had no idea how the theory that we were studying was applied to real world applications.
I am also concerned about whether the students are receiving the right kind of experience to prepare them for the aerospace industry. They get to make all the design decisions and direct their entire project, but when they are hired by Lockheed Martin or some other large aerospace company they will be doing mind numbing paperwork and will have little power to make engineering decisions, particularly on government contracts. I also know about this from years of experience. They also are not learning the political skills that they will need to have to survive in the corporate world, where career success depends more on how you suck up to authority than on your ability to design or build anything.
I am not diminishing the students, I love the students and want them to succeed better than I did, but I have much experience, not all of it positive, that I feel I should share with them during their formative years.
Dan
------ Original Message ------ Received: Sun, 23 Oct 2011 09:18:48 AM EDT From: Stefan Wagener wageners@gmail.com To: Daniel Schultz n8fgv@usa.netCc: amsat-bb@amsat.org Subject: Re: [amsat-bb] Why should we support AMSAT?
Hi Dan,
You have some good points and your thoughts are appreciated. But why are you diminishing the students efforts by making these statements:
At least they are building, studying, learning and actually many times successfully have an operational satellite.
Thanks for reading.
Stefan, VE4NSA
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