So, on Wednesday, Aphrodite and I were invited to the elementary school where our kids had gone to speak to the students about our careers as engineers. These were pre-kindergarten through fifth-grade students, fairly evenly divided.
Aphrodite, being who she is, gave an excellent talk on Test Engineering, with photos and videos. Me, being me, did a design exercise on how to build a bug catcher. The kids were good and had lots of good ideas (way too many, but that's typical of adult design exercises, too).
One boy, probably in kindergarten, proceeded to give me the single best design that I'll ever hear. He politely raised his hand and waited until he was called upon. When it was his turn to speak, he very precisely described how, if you wish to catch spiders, you need a bowl with steep sides about this high (using his fingers to indicate about an inch). You set this on the floor and then you place a dead hand in the middle and all the spiders will come and be trapped in the bowl.
A dead hand?
Yes. Spiders are really attracted to dead hands.
Several other students solemnly agreed that dead hands worked especially well for spiders, His teacher was frantically trying not to laugh out loud. I looked at him as he stood seriously looking back at me, waiting for feedback, and said, "I'll be sure to get the test engineers working on that, but I think that we may have trouble getting it past Product Compliance and the Branding departments."
He nodded knowingly and we continued the exercise.
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