Woodie Flowers

Professor Emeritus Woodie Flowers, innovator in design and engineering education, developed design and robotics competitions at MIT, FIRST, and beyond, while promoting his concept of "gracious professionalism." Woodie Flowers SM '68, MEng '71, PhD '73, the Pappalardo Professor Emeritus of Mechanical Engineering. 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.