Most of us remember Marty McFly from the Back to the Future trilogy, right? Then
you likely recall the scene in the second movie where Marty uses
his skateboarding skills to escape the bad guys on his hoverboard.
Yup, his hoverboard.

Do you know what year that scene was set?
2015.

So where are the hoverboards, or the
Jetsons-style flying cars (which were developed because the earth
was too polluted, by the way), or the food pellets that turn to
prime rib instantaneously in a super-powered microwave called the
Food-A-Rac-A-Cycle?

While movies and cartoons inherently take some
poetic license, these types of engineering concepts have clearly
existed in our imaginations, and in some cases development, for a
very long time.

Yet they have not yet cracked our everyday
lives. Why is that?

The 1939 World Fair, for example, unveiled
Elektro, a seven-foot-tall, 265-pound robot that could walk by
voice command, speak about 700 words, smoke cigarettes, blow up
balloons (after smoking all those cigarettes!), and move his head
and arms. He returned to the fair in 1940, accompanied by Sparko, a
robot dog that could bark, sit, and beg.

Today, there is Tekno the robotic dog, which
compared to Sparko, sort of feels like we have gone back to the
future.

I know there have been some global advances in
robotics, such as in positional sensing for robotic guidance and
tactile force-feedback for delicate robotic manipulation.

However I do not know one person who owns Rosie
the robot maid — no matter how outdated she was. Maybe
it’s because every home doesn’t need a Rosie
(my wife would disagree), but maybe other areas of industry do, and
are waiting eagerly on engineers to design it.

Put another way, an oft-heard phrase states that
“Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's
coming attractions.”

And isn’t that what engineering
professionals do? Wonder not only how something works, but more
importantly, what could work better and have a positive impact in
the future?

So is there an engineer curious enough, inspired
enough — motivated enough — to crack the code
of necessity of the 21st century? That is my hope, and my
challenge, to all our readers.

I look forward to the product advancements that
will continue to grace the pages of Electronic Products, and in the
meantime, I’ll continue to ponder “life's
coming attractions” while I check and see how much longer
before my prime rib is ready.