STEM vs. STEAM

[Marc P.]

Originally Posted by Philip Arola

The point is what the emphasis of the program is. One of the goals of FIRST is to make scientists and engineers "rock stars." Many artists are already immensely popular, they don't need the extra boost.

The emphasis of the program is "Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology". Art means many things to many people- to some, it's music, painting, and writing. To others, it's a false color representation of otherwise non-visible wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum produced by a NASA scientist from the Hubble Space Telescope. In the engineering world, there's an entire artistic category called Industrial Design- FRC even has an award for it, sponsored by General Motors, which "Celebrates form and function in an efficiently designed machine that effectively addresses the game challenge."

The bottom line is, art is significantly more than music, painting, poetry, crafts, or whatever stereotypes are generally associated with the word. Art turns the math and physics of electric propulsion into a Tesla Model S, or internal combustion into a Porsche 911/Bugatti Veyron/(insert favorite supercar), or audio decompression algorithms into an iPod, or an FRC game into an aesthetically pleasing and highly functional robot. I would argue anyone who doesn't think an FRC Team 118 robot is a work of art has no understanding of the word. Art is the fusion of form and function, the look and feel of something complimenting how it works. Art is being able to communicate how a design came about, or the inspiration for a component. It's sharing and expressing ideas. Art is whatever you make it, and it has as much of a place in science and engineering as the math and physics. Whether it's a stunning visual representation of infrared, ultraviolet, and x-ray wavelengths of a distant galaxy, or the "poetry in motion" of a perfect two boulder autonomous, there are few things more inspiring than art, and if that isn't the emphasis of the program, I don't know what is.