Engineers Power Our Past and Future

How does your artwork depict the contribution of engineers to a better world?

“Engineers Power Our Past and Future” shows how Engineers help people in the past, the present and the future.  On the left, we have a water wheel and hot air balloon, which represent how we made energy & food and moved around in the past.  On the right, we have the present, a solar-powered home, a city, and an airplane which show how we make energy and move around now.   In the center, we have a future with a healthy planet showing a Mother Tree and Rocket Ship.   Engineers make technology to feed us, house us and move us around.  We are healthy from engineer’s ideas and they help the Earth stay healthy too.

Describe how you think viewers from at least two different audiences might view or interpret your work.

Engineers will like my work, “Engineers Power Our Past and Future”, because they will look at the water wheel and wonder if they could make it if we never had an Archimedes.  I have always loved doing water experiments, like channels and pumps. This year, my science fair poster is about Archimedes.  His pumps helped ancient people make food and live.  Last year, I studied energy conversions between kinetic and potential energy and focused on Newton and Leonardo Da Vinci. People say Da Vinci had ADHD and Dyslexia and used them like a superpower, not a disability, like me.  Da Vinci wasn’t just an Artist, he was an inventor and engineer too.  This contest is a great way to remember great minds like Da Vinci and how they helped make our world better and more beautiful.  Yes, I think engineers will also enjoy seeing historical inventions and how engineers got us to the future.  

Kids and people with neurodiversity will like this artwork because: 1) It’s a good drawing.  My little sister looks at the picture and wonders what it is like to go in a hot air balloon and asks the parents if she can go too.  2) The parents would wonder what it would be like to live in a solar-powered  house. Last year, the power went out at our cabin for a week during winter break.  I realized how important our energy network is to our life.  We had to boil water on a burner and boil dried foods.  Engineers help us be healthy and eat and live.  Engineers help us have a healthy world.  

Briefly describe the materials you used and the process you went through to create your piece.

At school, when the teacher talked about the project, I thought “Oooh, a river” because I love water.  What would go along with that?  A water wheel!  I love playing with my water table and pumping water and changing its course.  After thinking of the water wheel, I thought of everything else:  the Mountains, the City, the Trees, the Solar-Powered House and sketched it out as a prototype drawing in class.

When it was time for the final project, I read about technologies on the Engineer Girl website, and searched up the pictures of technologies that I like.  I made each technology more detailed.  I made some mistakes and started over.  On a bigger piece of art paper, I outlined each part of the picture and then started with the background in a watercolor wash.  Artists always say:  you do the background first, then the midground and finally the foreground.  I added colored pencil and ink details to the midground.  Along the way, I thought:  it would be nice to make the foreground pop as a collage.  So, I drew the foreground technologies (water wheel, hot air balloon, airplane, and solar-powered house) in colored pencil, then ink, then cut them out.  I experimented with different ways to make a 3D pop-out effect and really like how the final artwork turned out.  

Explain anything you learned from the process. Ideally include any failures you experienced along the way. Failure and subsequent improvement are critical to engineering design, so please tell us how you failed, how you dealt with it, and how that influenced your submission.

Thank you for this challenge.  I have dyslexia and sometimes drawing is a better way to communicate than writing.  I think in pictures and this drawing popped into my head right away when the teacher told us the challenge.  After my pencil drawing in class, I went home and tried the picture on bigger art paper.  I wanted to do a mostly water color painting with some crayon resist.  Well, I got too excited and before I knew it had a picture half-way done in crayon.  This wasn’t what I had in my mind, but I had already done so much work!  

At some point, I realized how much more work was needed and realized that scrapping the drawing at that time wasn’t that big of a deal.  I started over as the water-color that was in my head.  I am so happy I restarted with my original vision.   After that mistake, I learned to test on a sample paper, not to try out new techniques on the main artwork, and to think a couple steps ahead.  I tested my cloud technique and shading technique on a sample page.  I made the foreground technology elements on separate pages after sketching them out first.  I experimented with different ways to make the pop-out foreground. I learned patience and not to give up.  I love the final product  and am proud of the hard work and time I put into the art.