Research: The Product of Passion
When you think of STEM research, what is your first thought? Is it people in lab coats holding a beaker? Is it a programmer sitting at a computer? What about a farmer walking through a field checking on their irrigation robots or an ordinary citizen taking pictures of their handmade local bee home for a study? All of these people are contributing to STEM research. While many people may associate the idea of research with a cold, clinical lab environment or a life-or-death problem, research extends far beyond those basic concepts. All sorts of people can give contributions to research, and many different types of problems can inspire important projects.
Research is not just a pursuit of information. It has to stem from both purpose and heart. Researchers of all fields can agree that experiments at any level are driven by a love of asking questions and a strong desire to find answers. Consider my earlier example of citizens gathering data on bee homes they built in their backyards. They take the time to collect data because they care about the result and they want to be a part of a discovery. No work can advance without an enthusiastic team prepared to complete it. Many projects focus on traditional ideas and experiments we associate with STEM research. However, it is also possible to take passions we do not normally associate with STEM fields and create inspired experiments.
My other articles have shown my passion for robotics and their various applications. This is a topic where the STEM connection is readily apparent. However, some of my more traditionally creative passions can also lend themselves to research. An example of this is crocheting, a hobby I enjoy. Dr. Elisabetta Matsumoto’s team at Georgia Tech is looking at how yarn can be viewed as a programmable material. They express the idea that knitting can be coding, and they have enjoyed knitting with other physicists at conferences as they present their ideas. Evaluating the mechanics of yarn can lead to useful applications for flexible materials and structural analysis. Knitting is one of Dr. Matsumoto’s longtime hobbies. This project shows how ideas we do not traditionally associate with STEM can have valuable connections to math, physics, and engineering.
A passion for reading and the growing complexity of university libraries has led to the implementation of robotic filing systems for books. A 2010 paper conceptualizes a system where an autonomous device in a remote warehouse finds requested literature and prepares it for delivery to the main library and its reader (Suthakorn et al). It also imagines the possibility of ordering a book via web order in the future, which has come to pass at many libraries. Today's university libraries have a wealth of digital and printed resources, and every year new published works make their way onto the shelves. These new management systems may eventually be an essential part of a functional library, and, in some places, they already are.
Passion is a word that is frequently thrown around when it comes to talking about work, life, etc. I would like to clarify that here, passion is only meant to be the basis for forming an idea. Discipline, proper planning, and hard work need to be behind any project to better ensure its successful because enthusiasm alone cannot keep an experiment afloat. However, in a study conducted in Spain, a lack of motivation was seen as the reason for nearly 20% of students wanting to drop out of graduate school (Castello, et al). That percentage tells us that while passion for the work itself is not everything, it is clearly important that students starting their research careers have a sense of intrinsic motivation to help move them forward. Building research projects out of passionate ideas and points of interest both technical and creative might lead to higher retention rates and would allow for advancements to come from all kinds of unlikely sources.
Passion for knowledge and interest in the results of an intriguing experiment can be found anywhere and everywhere. That is why research projects can be so expansive. They might include the help of scientists across different labs, disciplines, and locations, as well as non-technical individuals who share a love of the idea and can contribute through gathering data on a local level. They incorporate ideas from technical STEM sources, as well as more traditionally creative ones. Ultimately, research is a broad umbrella covering people from all over contributing their time to the projects that make them happy. As I advance my own career in research, I look forward to combining my many passions into research that will help solve problems, and I hope others are able to do the same.
Works Cited
M. Castello, M. Pardo, A. Sala-Bubare, and N. Sune-Soler, “Why do students consider dropping out of doctoral degrees? Institutional and personal factors,” Higher Education, vol. 74, no. 6, pp. 1053-1068, December 2017. [Online]. Available: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10734-016-0106-9. [Accessed December 13, 2019].
J. Suthakorn, Sangyoon Lee, Yu Zhou, R. Thomas, S. Choudhury and G. S. Chirikjian, "A robotic library system for an off-site shelving facility," Proceedings 2002 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (Cat. No.02CH37292), Washington, DC, USA, 2002, pp. 3589-3594 vol.4.
