Lucy Rogers, Future Strong Hero, tells us how

Lucy Rogers, Future Strong Hero

Lucy Rogers is Founder of Makertorium in the U.K., has a

Ph.D. in Fluid Mechanics, builds robot dinosaurs, and is author

of It’s ONLY Rocket Science.



Future Strong Hero Series: Insights from top leaders,

change makers and thought leaders who are creating better,

bolder tomorrows.

• • • • • • • • • • •

The Life of a Rocket Scientist: I make engineering fun. Which includes

earning my Ph.D. by blowing bubbles. I was working with a company that

made fire fighting equipment. They knew how to extinguish petrochemical

fires, but weren’t quite sure why it worked. I filmed the process with

high-speed video to analyze it.



I’m currently making 3-D printed mini-versions of London’s famed double

decker buses. By connecting them to the Internet, my models are linked

into the London transport system, which knows where every bus is at any

given moment. So the little bus starts flashing green when a bus is

getting close to your stop, or red if there are problems on your route.

The client did not want the phone-app version of this because she kept

getting distracted by everything else on her phone.



Recently, I worked with a theme park on the Isle of Wight, Blackgang Chine,

which had animatronic dinosaurs. One of the main dinosaurs went down,

and they called me in. We brought a whole team of hackers together —

volunteers from the maker community — and rebuilt it, and trained the

staff to reprogram the dinosaurs and fix things themselves. We also

included a Random mode, so park visitors could never tell what the T-Rex

would do. I like petrifying children! Toddlers, teenagers, and everyone

loved it — usually running away screaming!



What Are the Big Issues You’re Dealing With?

With the Internet of Things (IoT), you now get so much data from every

thing and every activity. The big issues revolve around what you want to

do with that data. Airlines are now putting RFID tags on your luggage,

so, with an app, you can now track your bag yourself all the time.

I see the coming era as: control is coming back to the user.



There are so many possibilities. Tracking everything will ultimately help

us make better use of all our resources — natural and man-made. My car,

which will be a shared car, will drop me off and go do other things while

I’m at work, and then come back for me when I’m ready to leave. If we’re

smart, this will help us find new ways to use a lot less.



This requires multiple things of us. One of which is more empathy.

Treating things, and the people who use them, with greater respect.



Many experts are thinking that IoT will create a surge in leasing almost

everything. Like you may soon lease your washing machine, and the

supplier will charge you per use, as well as upgrade it on a regular basis.



But will people treat those leased things as well as they treat things

they own? And will planned obselence of everything drive up the use

of resources instead of conserving them? We’ve got to be mindful of

these issues as we go forward.



What About Future of Work Issues?

Humans are built to be good at adapting and learning. Schools, society,

and workplaces force a lot of that out of us. But we’re still far better

at those things than any kind of robot or AI (Artificial Intelligence).

So, although robots will take over a lot of the less-skilled, manual

labor jobs — they’ll work 24×7 and don’t need sick days and holidays

and benefits — we’ll need people to come up with all the ideas that

will take us forward.



Right now, we simply are not investing enough in the people who will

be replaced by robots and in the training to helping them to adapt.

And this needs to begin in primary school. Less teaching them to

pass exams, and more teaching them the skills to continuously keep

learning and continuously adapt. Also, computer intelligence will

help tailor learning to each individual’s needs and learning styles.



We know that this is possible by looking at us as consumers. Ten or

more years ago, many senior citizens were not using email, now many

are happily using iPads and iPhones. If we make it easier for people

to change, and if it’s to people’s advantage to change, they will.




Play and fun are such a crucial part of this! In the

maker community, the tools are getting simpler

and more fun to use. For example, I’m a space

geek and a while ago I wanted something that

lit up when the International Space Station passed

overhead. I started learning how to do that because it was something

I wanted and was fun for me.



The Biggest Thing You’ve Learned About Our Future?

My hope, and what I try to help with, is that people start thinking

about how they can be creative. How you can start making the

world the way you want it to be, not just “they” should fix this.

“They” is us. “Us” is me. And I have to do something now.



More than anytime in the past, we have the tools to help everyone

do that. And if you don’t have the skills to do something yourself,

online communities — especially the maker community, which is all

about giving — are filled with people who will help.



Soon companies will stop needing to tell employees “You must

do this, you must do that,” and start asking its very creative

workforce, “How do we make this a better customer experience?

How can we make money? How do we make it more efficient?”



The challenge is not changing individuals. It’s changing culture,

so we’re leveraging all this change for the good of all. We still

have a ways to go there. Ultimately, we must all remember that

we’ve only got one planet. Being a maker to save resources isn’t

just about cost-effectiveness and productivity, it’s about saving

our one and only planet.



Rogers Strongisms

• Control is coming back to the user. How will you seize it?

• Humans are infinitely creative and adaptive. Most individuals

have that ground out of them. Regain your childlike creativity,

regain your future.

• Don’t wait for “them” to fix things!