ORNL researcher Venkat Venkatakrishnan introduces Northwest Middle School students to engineering concepts during Engineers Week. Photo: Abby Bower
"Engineering is about building things to help others."
Before diving into a longer explanation, that's how Singanallur "Venkat" Venkatakrishnan, an electrical and computer engineer at ORNL, described engineering to students at Northwest Middle School.
Venkat was among 20 ORNL engineers who visited 15 middle schools across East Tennessee for Engineers Week, an international outreach effort created to cultivate a diverse engineering workforce by "increasing understanding of and interest in engineering and technology careers." ORNL's inaugural Engineers Week activities introduced more than 800 students to the possibilities of engineering -- and to the national lab in their backyard.
Though 84% of educators say a visit from an engineer helps students learn about engineering careers, according to the engineering outreach organization DiscoverE, 74% also say students don't often get the opportunity to meet an engineer. ORNL focused this year's effort on middle school, when many students aren't sure what an engineer does.
After introducing the students to different fields of engineering – mechanical, civil, chemical, nuclear, computer and electrical engineering – Venkat described his own work in ORNL's Electrical & Electronics Systems Research Division. At ORNL, he creates algorithms that help researchers transform data gleaned from neutrons and x-rays into crisp 3D images.
His work gives scientists a nondestructive way to study the structure and quality of materials, but he wanted to explain the broader impact of engineering as it relates to imaging.
Even with a ubiquitous cell phone camera, he told the students, "You have a device that can convert light into numbers, and when you store it in a computer that means you can do a lot. Each time you click a picture, the phone is actually doing algebra so it can store the picture and show it on the screen."
Other everyday technologies – from airport security scanners to the popular photo messaging platform Snapchat – use mathematics and code to create clearer images, he continued.
"I didn't really know much about engineering. I learned quite a bit," said eighth grader Breanna Naysmith. "I thought it was cool that they used numbers to make the pictures clear."
In addition to emphasizing hard skills required to be an engineer, such as math, physics and computer science, Venkat hit on soft skills, such as working on teams.
"At Oak Ridge National Laboratory, there are thousands of engineers who work together to create stuff," he told the students. "In today's world, that means being able to interact with a diverse set of people from different parts of the country and different parts of the world."
