Spring Break
Lauded inventor West reflects on life, successes
Issue date: 9/20/07
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Growing up, James West was prone to the common childhood affliction of taking apart everything he could get his hands on as an attempt to satisfy his insatiable curiosity.
"Model airplanes were a big favorite. If I had a dollar I knew exactly where I'd spend it," West said. Sometimes this got him in trouble, such as when he was shocked by 120 volts from a repaired radio he tried to plug in.
West's enduring love of tinkering has paid off: this past July, he was awarded the National Medal of Technology for his co-invention of the electret microphone. Ninety-five percent of the two billion microphones produced annually are electret microphones, which are preferred for their small size, low cost and high fidelity.
"Receiving the National Medal of Technology is awesome," West said. "That's an award that millions of people would like to have, and I was fortunate enough to get it; I'm still on a cloud." He received the award from President Bush at a special White House ceremony.
West worries, however, that his childhood love is not possible for children today. "Unfortunately, there are very few things that you can take apart these days," he said.
Because of this, West is working with the National Inventor's Hall of Fame, of which he is an inductee, to launch an advertising campaign to engage children in tinkering. "You can teach an awful lot of science through sports, through many of the things that kids want to be when they grow up. But they only see this on the surface, and so these are the kinds of things we want to try to make interactive and bring to kids, because that is sorely missing," he said.
West believes strongly in nurturing childhood curiosity by not letting it die at a young age. "Go to any six-, seven- or eight-year-old, and they have loads and loads of questions, and loads of ideas and thought," he said. "By the time they're 15, all of that is gone, and the reason it is is because it's not nurtured, it's not supported."
"Model airplanes were a big favorite. If I had a dollar I knew exactly where I'd spend it," West said. Sometimes this got him in trouble, such as when he was shocked by 120 volts from a repaired radio he tried to plug in.
West's enduring love of tinkering has paid off: this past July, he was awarded the National Medal of Technology for his co-invention of the electret microphone. Ninety-five percent of the two billion microphones produced annually are electret microphones, which are preferred for their small size, low cost and high fidelity.
"Receiving the National Medal of Technology is awesome," West said. "That's an award that millions of people would like to have, and I was fortunate enough to get it; I'm still on a cloud." He received the award from President Bush at a special White House ceremony.
West worries, however, that his childhood love is not possible for children today. "Unfortunately, there are very few things that you can take apart these days," he said.
Because of this, West is working with the National Inventor's Hall of Fame, of which he is an inductee, to launch an advertising campaign to engage children in tinkering. "You can teach an awful lot of science through sports, through many of the things that kids want to be when they grow up. But they only see this on the surface, and so these are the kinds of things we want to try to make interactive and bring to kids, because that is sorely missing," he said.
West believes strongly in nurturing childhood curiosity by not letting it die at a young age. "Go to any six-, seven- or eight-year-old, and they have loads and loads of questions, and loads of ideas and thought," he said. "By the time they're 15, all of that is gone, and the reason it is is because it's not nurtured, it's not supported."
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