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Professor Emeritus Woodie Flowers, innovator in design and engineering education, dies at 75
Professor Emeritus Woodie Flowers, innovator in design and engineering education, dies at 75
Beloved teacher and pioneer in hands-on engineering education developed design and robotics competitions at MIT, FIRST, and beyond, while promoting his concept of “gracious professionalism.”
Mary Beth Gallagher | Department of Mechanical Engineering
October 14, 2019
Woodie Flowers SM ’68, MEng ’71, PhD ’73, the Pappalardo Professor Emeritus of Mechanical Engineering, passed away on Oct. 11 at the age of 75. Flowers’ passion for design and his infectious kindness have impacted countless engineering students across the world.
Flowers was instrumental in shaping MIT’s hands-on approach to engineering design education, first developing teaching methods and learning opportunities that culminated in a design competition for class 2.70, now called 2.007 (Design and Manufacturing I). This annual MIT event, which has now been held for nearly five decades, has impacted generations of students and has been emulated at universities around the world. Flowers expanded this concept to high school and elementary school students, working to help found the world-wide FIRST Robotics Competition, which has introduced millions of children to science and engineering.
Born in 1943, Flowers was reared in Jena, Louisiana. He became interested in mechanical engineering and design at a young age thanks in large part to his mother and his father, who was a welder with a penchant for tinkering and building. Growing up, Flowers also expressed a love of nature and traveling. When he wasn’t working on cars or building rockets as a teenager, he was camping with his family in Louisiana or collecting butterflies. This interest in nature led to an award-winning science fair project on the impact the environment has on Lepidoptera. Flowers’ passion for both building and nature also helped him earn the rank of Eagle Scout.
Flowers received his bachelor’s degree in engineering from Louisiana Tech University in 1966. After graduating, he spent a summer as an engineering trainee for the Humble Oil Company before enrolling in MIT for graduate school. He received his master’s of science in mechanical engineering in 1968 and an engineer’s degree in 1971. Two years later he earned his doctoral degree under the supervision of the late Professor Robert Mann. For his thesis, Flowers designed a “man-interactive simulator system” for the development of prosthetics for above-knee amputees. He would continue to design above-knee prosthetics throughout his career.
....
PBS highlighted Flowers’ innovative educational approach to class 2.007 in a 1981 documentary “Discover: The World of Science.” The network continued to cover the 2.007 robotics competition throughout the 1980s, and nearly a decade later, Flowers hosted the popular PBS series “Scientific American Frontiers,” from 1990-1993. One of the program’s objectives was to get people interested in science and engineering. He was awarded a regional Emmy Award for his work on the series.
At the same time, Flowers helped develop a new program to inspire young people that built upon the competition he developed for 2.007. He collaborated with Dean Kamen, founder of FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), to develop a robotics competition for high school students. In 1992, the inaugural FIRST Robotics Competition was held, giving high school students from around the world an opportunity to design and build their own robots.
Over the past three decades, FIRST robotics has grown into a global movement serving 660,000 students from over 100 countries each year. It provides scholarship opportunities totaling over $80 million available to FIRST high school students. Flowers’ mantra of “gracious professionalism” remains at FIRST’s core. In 1996, William P. Murphy, Jr. founded the annual Woodie Flowers Award within FIRST to celebrate communication in engineering and design. The award “recognizes an individual who has done an outstanding job of motivation through communication while also challenging the students to be clear and succinct in recognizing the value of communication.”
....
Flowers is survived by his beloved wife Margaret Flowers of Weston, Massachusetts, his sister, Kay Wells of St. Augustine, Florida, his niece Catherine Calabria, also of St. Augustine, his nephew, David Morrison of Arlington, Virginia, as well as generations of grateful and adoring students.
Memorial donations to FIRST and memories of Flowers may be delivered via this website or mailed to FIRST c/o Director Dia Stolnitz, 200 Bedford Street, Manchester, New Hampshire, 03101.
MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering will be organizing a digital memorial in Woodie’s honor where alumni, former colleagues, and students are welcome to share their remembrances. Remembrances may be submitted via the MechE website.
This article will be updated with information about memorial services as it becomes available.
Beloved teacher and pioneer in hands-on engineering education developed design and robotics competitions at MIT, FIRST, and beyond, while promoting his concept of “gracious professionalism.”
Mary Beth Gallagher | Department of Mechanical Engineering
October 14, 2019
Woodie Flowers SM ’68, MEng ’71, PhD ’73, the Pappalardo Professor Emeritus of Mechanical Engineering, passed away on Oct. 11 at the age of 75. Flowers’ passion for design and his infectious kindness have impacted countless engineering students across the world.
Flowers was instrumental in shaping MIT’s hands-on approach to engineering design education, first developing teaching methods and learning opportunities that culminated in a design competition for class 2.70, now called 2.007 (Design and Manufacturing I). This annual MIT event, which has now been held for nearly five decades, has impacted generations of students and has been emulated at universities around the world. Flowers expanded this concept to high school and elementary school students, working to help found the world-wide FIRST Robotics Competition, which has introduced millions of children to science and engineering.
Born in 1943, Flowers was reared in Jena, Louisiana. He became interested in mechanical engineering and design at a young age thanks in large part to his mother and his father, who was a welder with a penchant for tinkering and building. Growing up, Flowers also expressed a love of nature and traveling. When he wasn’t working on cars or building rockets as a teenager, he was camping with his family in Louisiana or collecting butterflies. This interest in nature led to an award-winning science fair project on the impact the environment has on Lepidoptera. Flowers’ passion for both building and nature also helped him earn the rank of Eagle Scout.
Flowers received his bachelor’s degree in engineering from Louisiana Tech University in 1966. After graduating, he spent a summer as an engineering trainee for the Humble Oil Company before enrolling in MIT for graduate school. He received his master’s of science in mechanical engineering in 1968 and an engineer’s degree in 1971. Two years later he earned his doctoral degree under the supervision of the late Professor Robert Mann. For his thesis, Flowers designed a “man-interactive simulator system” for the development of prosthetics for above-knee amputees. He would continue to design above-knee prosthetics throughout his career.
....
PBS highlighted Flowers’ innovative educational approach to class 2.007 in a 1981 documentary “Discover: The World of Science.” The network continued to cover the 2.007 robotics competition throughout the 1980s, and nearly a decade later, Flowers hosted the popular PBS series “Scientific American Frontiers,” from 1990-1993. One of the program’s objectives was to get people interested in science and engineering. He was awarded a regional Emmy Award for his work on the series.
At the same time, Flowers helped develop a new program to inspire young people that built upon the competition he developed for 2.007. He collaborated with Dean Kamen, founder of FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), to develop a robotics competition for high school students. In 1992, the inaugural FIRST Robotics Competition was held, giving high school students from around the world an opportunity to design and build their own robots.
Over the past three decades, FIRST robotics has grown into a global movement serving 660,000 students from over 100 countries each year. It provides scholarship opportunities totaling over $80 million available to FIRST high school students. Flowers’ mantra of “gracious professionalism” remains at FIRST’s core. In 1996, William P. Murphy, Jr. founded the annual Woodie Flowers Award within FIRST to celebrate communication in engineering and design. The award “recognizes an individual who has done an outstanding job of motivation through communication while also challenging the students to be clear and succinct in recognizing the value of communication.”
....
Flowers is survived by his beloved wife Margaret Flowers of Weston, Massachusetts, his sister, Kay Wells of St. Augustine, Florida, his niece Catherine Calabria, also of St. Augustine, his nephew, David Morrison of Arlington, Virginia, as well as generations of grateful and adoring students.
Memorial donations to FIRST and memories of Flowers may be delivered via this website or mailed to FIRST c/o Director Dia Stolnitz, 200 Bedford Street, Manchester, New Hampshire, 03101.
MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering will be organizing a digital memorial in Woodie’s honor where alumni, former colleagues, and students are welcome to share their remembrances. Remembrances may be submitted via the MechE website.
This article will be updated with information about memorial services as it becomes available.
Full disclosure: I couldn't get into MIT if I tried. I saw the obit in the Washington Post or New York Times and recalled the name. I see he has a nephew living in Arlington, Vriginia.
Course 2.70 Introduction to Design Competition—Woodie Flowers (1981)
2,311 views•Aug 6, 2013
From the Vault of MIT
7.32K subscribers
Professor Woodie Flowers, of the MIT Mechanical Engineering department, hosts the 1981 competition for his famous "Introduction to Design" class -- perhaps MIT's most influential engineering course. The challenge is described in the syllabus: to "design and build a robotic system for putting a round peg in a square hole, while a competing system tries to put another peg into the same hole." Known originally as Course 2.70, this particular year's competition was called "The MIT Arms Race."
FIRST robotics on PBS may 16,2006
1,958 views•May 17, 2006
avigil
1 subscriber
The story of team who competes in the finals in Georgia.
Here's the obit from the New York Times:
Woodie Flowers, Who Made Science a Competitive Sport, Dies at 75
His hands-on methods of teaching mechanical engineering at M.I.T. made him a star on campus (and on PBS) and led to student contests on a global scale.
By Glenn Rifkin
Oct. 24, 2019
Woodie Flowers, an innovative and flamboyant mechanical engineering professor at M.I.T. (he liked to roller-blade and ride unicycles through its august halls) who championed a hands-on learning philosophy that reshaped engineering and design education and turned him into something of a celebrity, died on Oct. 11 in Boston. He was 75.
His death, at Massachusetts General Hospital, was caused by a sudden acute illness following aorta surgery, his wife, Margaret Flowers, said.
The original source of Professor Flowers’s renown was an undergraduate course at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with the unprepossessing name 2.70 Introduction to Design, which he started teaching in the 1970s.
....
His hands-on methods of teaching mechanical engineering at M.I.T. made him a star on campus (and on PBS) and led to student contests on a global scale.
By Glenn Rifkin
Oct. 24, 2019
Woodie Flowers, an innovative and flamboyant mechanical engineering professor at M.I.T. (he liked to roller-blade and ride unicycles through its august halls) who championed a hands-on learning philosophy that reshaped engineering and design education and turned him into something of a celebrity, died on Oct. 11 in Boston. He was 75.
His death, at Massachusetts General Hospital, was caused by a sudden acute illness following aorta surgery, his wife, Margaret Flowers, said.
The original source of Professor Flowers’s renown was an undergraduate course at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with the unprepossessing name 2.70 Introduction to Design, which he started teaching in the 1970s.
....
2 replies
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= new reply since forum marked as read
and not being particularly mechanically inclined while still marveling at the brains that have advanced and improved our world and shared their knowledge with their students, would it be blasphamy to dig out my black "What would Bucky do?" T-shirt in memorium? RIP, Professor Flowers - you made a difference! 
