Hello Emerging Tech Careers In the past In the present Groundbreaking inventions made life easier in many ways New technologies are changing the world in mind-boggling ways The future is yours to imagine WHAT COMES NEXT 4
Who would have thought Alexander Graham Bell invented the first telephone in 1876 In 1879 Thomas Edison invented the first electric lightbulb The Wright brothers successfully flew the first airplane in 1903 And don’t forget Henry Ford He invented a way to make cars quicker and cheaper These brilliant inventors did things that people once thought were impossible To go from candles to electricity From horse-drawn carriages to automobiles and airplanes Wow The sky’s the limit Now technology is being used to do even more amazing things Take drones for instance A drone is an unmanned aerial vehicle UAV that is navigated by remote control or special software Many people have toy drones that they fly for fun More powerful drones are used by the military for traffic and weather monitoring search and rescue operations firefighting and package delivery This book explores the people and professions behind drones Some of these careers like UAV pilot are so cutting-edge that they didn’t exist just a decade or so ago Others like mechanical engineer offer exciting new twists using drones Read on to explore exciting possibilities for your future 5
Aerospace Engineer You hear a buzzing sound in the air above you and look up Some kind of vehicle is zipping through the sky It’s too small to be a helicopter or an airplane In fact it’s too small to even carry a passenger Could it be a drone 6
You’ve probably heard a lot about drones You may have even flown one yourself These flying vehicles come in all kinds of shapes and sizes Often they are used for important jobs such as military missions or delivering packages to remote areas Other times they are just for fun People have been building drones for decades However thanks to the efforts of talented engineers drone technology has improved a great deal in recent years Engineers who specialize in aircraft are called aerospace engineers Aerospace engineers use their knowledge of physics to think about the ways different objects can move through air They might test out different wing shapes to see which ones make an aircraft fly fastest They might experiment with the size and placement of rotors to improve an aircraft’s ability to lift heavy things They might also work with different materials to create vehicles that weigh less or don’t require as much energy to fly 7 Imagine It D Build a paper airplane and throw it a few times What do you notice about its flight What can you do to improve it D Make another airplane but do it differently For example use heavier paper or give your airplane a different shape Find all kinds of ideas at www Foldnfly com D Make a chart to keep track of what features work best Dig Deeper J Check out this National Aeronautics and Space Administration NASA web page to learn more about the science behind flight http bit ly AeroNASA J You can also read about the way helicopter-style rotors work http bit ly NASACopter
