ORB has done blogs on the first engineers, the most
influential engineers, and ever our own engineers, but what about the fictional
engineers? The ones who are portrayed in the media living the glamorous
engineer life! Here are some of our favorite fictional engineers:
Wayne Szalinski, played by Rick Moranis in the Disney film Honey,
I Shrunk The Kids.
Wayne Szalinski, a lovable scientist, invents a shrink ray
in the attic of his home. The plot of the movie is he accidentally shrinks his
kids and the neighbor’s kids. In the end, and just before he eats his own son
who has fallen into his Cheerios, Wayne finds them all and manages to restore
everyone back to their original sizes. We love him because he had a crazy idea
and actually made it work! Granted, it could have been a little safer but that
wouldn’t have made for a very entertaining movie.
Dr. Emmett Brown played zanily by Christopher Lloyd in all
three Back To The Future films.
This iconic scientist and engineer first made a time machine
using the Flux Capacitor out of a Delorean, and then out of a steam locomotive.
While he might have made time travel possible, the Doc’s invention tended to cause
chaos everywhere he went. Granted, with the help of his teenage friend Marty, he
was able to fix all of the temporal damage that was done. All three films are
fan favorites to this day, which is why we love this engineer.
Tony Stark played by Robert Downey Jr. in the Marvel
films.
Tony Stark is many things, a billionaire, a businessman, an
inventor, but most importantly, he is an engineer. His inventions include his
Iron Man suit - which is armed to the teeth with weapons of his own design - as
well as the Arc Reactor – a portable power source. His entertaining and memorable
portrayal of the coolest engineer kicked off an entire franchise with some of
our other favorite Marvel engineers: Bruce Banner, Hank Pym, Peter
Parker, and Shuri.
Hiro Hamada voiced by Ryan Potter in Big Hero 6.
Hiro Hamada is the youngest engineer on this list, but that
doesn’t make him any less impressive! Inspired by his older brother Tadashi,
Hiro develops a new kind of tech, microbots that can be controlled with his
mind. When the villain of the story steals his microbots to destroy the world,
Hiro and his friends with the help of Tadashi’s invention, Baymax a lovable
personal healthcare companion, save the day. We love Hiro for his fresh ideas
and innovation, but also for his great love of his family.
Who are your favorite fictional engineers?
More to come soon.