Well, it’s not gone, but it certainly has gone out of fashion compared to when I was a kid. How many kids work on their own cars these days? Though I would note that just changing a head gasket is not equivalent to rebuilding the whole engine.
I think that this is part and parcel of the whole academic bubble, which continues to inflate beyond economic reason. Particularly in today’s economy, people should realize that plumbing can’t be outsourced.
[Update about noon]
Speaking of the upcoming pop of the education bubble, some schools are now not allowing parents to see their children’s grades in college. How many parents are going to put up with that and continue to pay tuition to such an institution? The notion of “treating students as adults” works fine for students who are actually adults. But adults pay their own way. There’s a lot more to being an adult than simply surviving long enough to reach the age of majority.
How many kids work on their own cars these days?
I would say quite a large number of them, based on the number of modified street racers I see on the streets. Perhaps you should go to the nearest video store and checkout Fast and Furious, or any of its 3 predecessors.
As for other tinkerings, how many kids in the 1950’s built there on home computer? I built my first in the 1980’s, but I must admit I didn’t do as much overclocking as kids do today.
When I was a kid, the geeks at the neighborhood computer store teased me when I was building my 386 (the first PC I ever owned) on the premise that no one would ever need a rig that powerful…
Tinkering requires curiosity, and today’s environment of constant external stimulation seems to drown out that little voice inside one’s head.
I have always been interested in how things work. My greatest inspiration, however, was figuring out how to put something back together before my parents found out I taken apart the clock/toaster/intake manifold on my mother’s car.
The end result is that I save a lot of money on routine repairs, but more importantly I gain a sense of satisfaction in doing something myself.
I think a lot of the tinkering has moved online. If you consider messing with a web page tinkering then you would have to admit that there is an awful lot of it around. And online games is another huge outlet for kids with a hankering for tinkering, whether it be creating their own flash-games, making mods of or creating new levels for commercial games, or just tweaking an in-game character build, there’s a whole lotta tinkering going on — just maybe not in the garage any more.
On the grades issues, lets take the parent/child relationship out of the equation. What about scholarships or grants? Do they get to see the grade? You might say, well the student has to provide the grades, but how many programs will accept a student copy rather than a certified copy from the registrar?
I guess though, parents and third party payers could always demand the student have the registrar send them the grades (usually an associated fee) in order to continue funding. If so, I hope that private east coast school has an efficient system to handle the new requests.
Yes and no.
Cars are better these days, in the sense that you can more easily find a good sports car or off-road vehicle, that doesn’t require modification to perform well. And all cars require less maintenance than was formerly the case. And some people still tinker, though many of them do it on computers and other electronics rather than heavy machinery. I think what’s different now is that much less tinkering is required of routine products to get them to perform well. So some people acquire almost no mechanical skills, whereas in the past almost everyone, at least most males, had to know how to perform basic repairs on a variety of machines and household object.
On the other hand I know people who only have their bicycles worked on by professional mechanics, which seems a bit odd to me. But maybe this is partly a wealth effect: as people’s time becomes more valuable with increasing productivity and wealth, it makes increasing sense for them to trade money against time by paying for services. Unless, of course, they enjoy tinkering.
I strongly agree with notanexpert. A lot of kids get involved in open source projects instead of working on a car.
On the other hand I know people who only have their bicycles worked on by professional mechanics, which seems a bit odd to me.
Robert Pirsig wrote a very good book
about this. Well, not just about that, but it was obviously a basis for it, as evidenced by the title. In fact, it makes me think of a new blog post…
Tinkering on modern cars is really hard. My father worked for Grumman and the LEM engine, and he’s given up on fixing his own car because it requires all of this computer diagnostic equipment.
Yes, my father. Take that.
I don’t recall my grades in college (15+ years ago) ever being sent to my parents. Didn’t ever see that as a problem. If the parents are controlling the purse strings, they have the power to get the child to show them the grades.
“Tinkering on modern cars is really hard.”
And thats why, if I can manage, all the vehicles I buy will be pre-2000 so I can always fix them myself. At least until they all get turned in as clunkers
Ignoring the parent/child friction, this brings up an interesting question. How can colleges expect parents to pay for their child’s education when they won’t show the performance evaluations or grades to the parent? This seems to me to be a possible wedge for disengaging financial aid from considerations of how much the parent is worth. Namely, if a student isn’t expected to show their grades to their parents, then a parent similarly isn’t expected to help pay for their child’s education.
My university (Univ. of Colorado) will not share grades with parents. If parents want to see how well their kids are performing, that is a private matter within the family. The kid won’t share: cut off his/her support. Do you guys really expect the university to decide on a case-by-case basis which students receive significant financial support from their parents and which ones are independently financing their educations? This policy also makes it much easier on professors when the helicopter parents call to demand that little Tommy’s grade be increased. As one prof in my department tells the parents: I do not deal with intermediaries.
I am a tinkerer. I do all my own car maintenance. I wish my garage had a pit that I could crawl into to get under the car easier. I saw one company that would install a storm shelter in the floor of the garage and all I thought of was how it would help me change the oil or swap out the catalytic converter for an off-road pipe.
Some auto manufacturers make it harder to implement upgrades than others. If you change out the cams or put a turbo kit on your car then most certainly you will need to find dyno shop to reprogram the fuel/air mixture tables and ignition timing. Subaru makes it easier since they use an off the shelf Denso engine management system. You can buy a Tactrix Open Port cable hooked to a laptop computer to perform data logging and ECU firmware flashes. The software to perform the reflash is open source so it is free as in beer.
On the other hand I know people who only have their bicycles worked on by professional mechanics, which seems a bit odd to me. But maybe this is partly a wealth effect: as people’s time becomes more valuable with increasing productivity and wealth, it makes increasing sense for them to trade money against time by paying for services.
Bingo. If the price to fix the kid’s bike is less than what a Sunday afternoon is worth to Dad, it goes in the shop…
Further thoughts. The ability to do basic mechanical repairs is like basic ability in first-aid or self-defense. None of these skills is necessary, but the more of them you have the less constrained you will be as you make your way through life. People who value individual autonomy will understand this and will learn as many of these skills as they can. You can buy your way out of many problems but not out of every problem.
On the grades — as I understand it, since the students are adults, the universities (I’m guessing just the public ones, although I guess it could also apply to private) are prohibited by FERPA from divulging any personal information to anyone other than the student or someone that the student designates.
It’s not just grades — *any* personal information is supposed to be kept private. This is considered one of the perks of teaching at the college level (at least to those of us who teach at lower levels **g**).
Actually the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) that prevents parents from seeing grades of students over 18 also goes further. Recent federal guidelines also prohibits faculty from emailing grades out since you are never sure who is reading the students email.
http://www.washington.edu/students/reg/ferpafac.html
[[[Notification of grades via email is in violation of FERPA. There is no guarantee of confidentiality on the Internet. The institution would be held responsible if an unauthorized third party gained access, in any manner, to a student’s education record through any electronic transmission method.]]]
Also nearly all universities require faculty to undergo annual training for FERPA complicance and needless to say a cottage industry of trainers have emerged to provide it.
Shows how what started out as a simple law in 1974 has been expanded by regulators.
If you are interested here is the link to the Federal FERPA website, which also applies to K-12 students.
http://www.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/index.html