Art World
Well, the modern art world looks as if it has beaten the tech world to it. The former has been producing work that is not out of place in a primary/elementary schools for quite a while now.
The British government has put a seven-year-old boy's design for a submarine into production, saying the lad had "really thought about" his work. Apprentices from the Defence Science and Technology Lab (DSTL) took a submarine sketch sent to the government-owned lab by seven-year-old Jacob Bland, from Suffolk, which he said …
It seems that art education now is about "concept" rather than the practical skills to achieve the result. The people who actually do the work are lower paid skilled craft workers who rarely get any public recognition.
The same was true in the past as well. Once a painter/sculptor had achieved fame they set up a studio where their actual work on a piece was often minimal. Their students/assistants did the bulk of it from possibly a rough sketch. The sculptor Donald de Lue was apprenticed at 12 - but was 40 before he could take credit for his work. He had been used to do the bodies in a studio where the famous owner was only good at doing faces - but who then took the credit for the whole piece.
The awards in the cinema world often go to the owner of an SFX studio rather than their employees/contractors who actually do the creative work and implementation.
The same was true in the past as well. Once a painter/sculptor had achieved fame they set up a studio where their actual work on a piece was often minimal. Their students/assistants did the bulk of it from possibly a rough sketch. The sculptor Donald de Lue was apprenticed at 12 - but was 40 before he could take credit for his work. He had been used to do the bodies in a studio where the famous owner was only good at doing faces - but who then took the credit for the whole piece.
Sure they didn't work for Dyson?
The term 'spotting' had me spluttering tea when I read it.
" Binoculars No1!"
"Yessir"
" I've just spotted an aircraft carrier but I can't seem to spot any aircraft aboard her."
"Nossir, they haven't inflated the dummies yet because it's windy and they keep blowing off the deck.
They don't actually have any real ones yet Sir."
"A whole generation of kids love submarines, thank to Octonauts."
An earlier generation was entralled by the first nuclear powered submarine USS Nautilus that crossed the Arctic ice under water. Kellogs cereal packets contained a plastic model of it. You added a pinch of baking powder and put it in a bowl/sink/bath full of water. It sank then eventually resurfaced as carbon dioxide was produced.
Here on the right hand side of the pond, when I were a lad I seem to vaguely recall a baking-powder-based sub free with corn flakes too. Not sure it was the Nautilus, but the details may come back to me shortly, given that Anything Can Happen In The Next Half Hour
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E06cNv55jTs (I had one of those too).
"Here on the right hand side of the pond, when I were a lad I seem to vaguely recall a baking-powder-based sub free with corn flakes too."
I remember a baking powder powered deep sea diver. You put it in a quart pop bottle with lukewarm water and could make the diver ascend and descend by tightening or loosening the bottle top.
"Anything Can Happen In The Next Half Hour
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E06cNv55jTs"
Which leads to other gems. That's this weekend's Youtube viewing sorted out. Ta muchly!
Or if you're of a slightly practical nature and want something to make with the kids, there's always the classic cartesian diver project.
Just needs a soda bottle, a pen lid and a bit of blu-tac or plasticine.
Years ago I worked on an MoD submarine project and one of the ex-submariners on the project told me how he once tried to play a practical joke on his c/o by putting one of these into an envelope with a note saying "latest submarine design", sealed the envelope, stamped it Top Secret and then put it into an internal post envelope addressed to the Head of the Submarine Service in Whitehall. He was expecting his c/o to remove the package from the out tray (as they're always nosey and would never have let something out to such a senior officer without it going up through the chain of command). Needless to say, something happened, it wasn't intercepted and it was indeed delivered.
Fortunately the top bod had a sense of humour and returned it with a note saying something like "Excellent innovation, design approved". But he sent it back via his chain of command. And as the top bod had found it funny, each subordinate down the chain then felt obliged to add a note showing that they too found it funny.
A week or so later he got called into his c/o's office who said he couldn't give him a bollocking because the top bod had approved it, and the notes from those down the chain of command were simultaneously hilarious and cringeworthy as each tried to be more witty than the previous.
It's a real shame. The kid produced a workable design.
Now that the grubbymint's techies have actually built one, it'll be bound to have a nice leaky back door installed somewhere.
Th protect the children, natch.
He should've sent the design to Mr Albert Kyeda, or whatever he calls himself these days. He'd get it to fly.
Y'all should be ashamed of yourselves... taking a Reg headline at face value.
Enjoy this for what it is. What would normally be considered a faceless government agency has tickled a kid silly by taking his drawing and putting it to 'official' use as a design exercise for their interns. The kid is thrilled, and the interns had a fun challenge. Win/Win!
Absolutely and who knows if this now turns into a new efficient design that no one every thought of because it's just silly. OK at 7 the chances are the child just drew something but good things have come because someone who doesn't know it's impossible does the impossible.