Instructor Spotlight: Nestor Gomez

Within the Integrative Design, Arts, and Technology (IDeATe) network at Carnegie Mellon, talented instructors come together from departments across campus to build a collaborative atmosphere and grow interdisciplinary expertise and creative inquiry through making. We asked Associate Teaching Professor of Mechanical Engineering Nestor Gomez a few questions about his work, to find out more about the ways he inspires students to innovate beyond the traditional boundaries of their primary majors.

Q: In your own words, give us an overview of what you teach for IDeATe.

I come from the tech side of things, so my idea with IDeATe is just to allow engineers to get soaking wet with their artistic sides. I think a lot of the time in engineering, we push that side away. So when it came time to design the courses, my idea was: what kind of project can I create that actually allows the creative side and the tech side to come together. I teach 24-214   IDeATe Special Topics: Mazes, which is within the Physical Computing minor so we do sensors and lights and all sorts of crazy things. The hardest thing for me is not to suggest ideas. Students will ask “can you describe a previous project” and I say “no.” I want them to come up with ideas about mazes and what they are. Are they electronic? Are they physical? Are they game related? Are they more philosophical in nature? I try to make it extremely open for them.

The other course that I’m teaching is called Smart Furniture. It’s like Intelligent Environments, which I teach in the spring, but specifically for furniture. It comes from my pet peeve, that except for communication devices like phones, I’m shocked by how little technology has advanced. One time I went to Colonial Williamsburg, which is a preserved colonial town, and you walk through the houses and they’re just like our houses. We have better building materials, but the way they’re arranged and decorated is so similar to the present it makes you wonder, when are we going to have futuristic spaces? The first assignment is to create a chair. I give the example of Benjamin Franklin’s chair, which flips and becomes a ladder. Then we move on to the other things we can do to integrate the great technology we have into our old technology, like furniture. 

Q: Students from all backgrounds, not just those with expertise in intelligent environments, can take your class. How can learning about this field elevate any academic experience? What lessons might translate to other disciplines?

Mazes are a great example of art with subtext, and then we add technology and we can really address specific things. You can take it at face value, or dig into the tech part of it, or dig into the creativity part of it, and it works out either way.

One of the mazes students make has to be virtual. But in this class, there are people who are going to be Computer Science majors, and there are people who are going to be English majors. So I need to find a way to ensure that people don’t silo themselves, and one person does all the programming and someone else just gives some creative input. Programming projects have this nature where everyone does them from 2 a.m. to 4 a.m., so collaborative coding is not as collaborative as we think it is. My solution was to do electronic mazes in Excel. Everyone thinks they know Excel. The idea behind it is: how do we create, and how do we add tech to it?

Q: Within IDeATe, students have the chance to work on projects with other students from across campus. What opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration does your class offer? Why is that important?

My classes are 100% interdisciplinary. Take someone that does graphic design: until you actually include design you don’t see how it’s incorporated, and then you see it everywhere, because graphic design is everywhere from books to posters. Everything scratches graphic design. But then, working together helps students understand that there's more to it than just making something look pretty. Then someone from that background starts to think, what other media is available to me that I haven’t considered, whether it’s 2D or 3D? 

I tell my students to be careful with silos. Divide and conquer is the worst way to learn. They get feedback from each other: they have access to all their peers for comments and support and bouncing ideas off each other.

Q: What do you find most meaningful or impactful about teaching with IDeATe? How does it differ from your home department of Mechanical Engineering?

There’s this idea in tech that you have to please other people. You feel like you have to find something that meets a demand that people have. In IDeATe, you’re free to make that, but you can also make something that literally only you like. You can be guided by wanting to see where the process takes you. In tech, it becomes part of your subconscious to always be optimizing: reduce material, make it less expensive to manufacture, easier to build. If you’re constantly doing this, you don’t even notice that you’re shutting off ideation paths that might be beautiful. 

We often think that in order to express our artistic vision, we have to have artistic talent. If you want to make something in wood, then you think you must have experience working in wood. But in IDeATe, we have managed shops like the wood shop, laser cutters, and 3D printers. These limitations on your creative vision start to fade away. You can come in blind and make something. 

Q: What is one key takeaway you hope students in your class have learned by the end of the semester?

There’s this quote that Jim Garret, the Provost, likes to say: “We cannot do everything, but we can do anything.” I’ve adapted it to be: you can’t know everything, but you can know anything. We can’t learn about everything about welding, or sound boards, or soldering, but you can learn something about them. That’s what I hope students take with them. They may not know how a  helicopter works, but they could learn. They may not know how AI works, but they could learn how a specific model works. You don’t have to become a world expert to learn about something. You can’t learn about everything, but you can know anything! Try it.