Woodie Claude Flowers was a professor of mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
15 Facts About Woodie Flowers
2.
Woodie Flowers's specialty areas were engineering design and product development; he held the Pappalardo Professorship and was a MacVicar Faculty Fellow.
3.
Woodie Flowers's father, Abe Flowers, was a welder and inventor; his mother, Bertie Graham, was an elementary-school and special education teacher.
4.
Woodie Flowers initially expected not to attend college, but at the advice of a high school teacher he attended Louisiana Polytechnic Institute under a disability scholarship, graduating with a Bachelor of Science in 1966.
5.
Woodie Flowers's thesis, titled "A man-interactive simulator system for above-knee prosthetics studies," was on a robot-like prosthetic knee inspired by Mann's Boston Arm.
6.
Woodie Flowers took over the class in 1974, developing it into one of the most popular classes at MIT.
7.
Woodie Flowers redesigned the challenge every year, always trying to make it more complex and exciting for students.
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In 1987, Woodie Flowers handed the class over to Harry West.
9.
Discover: the World of Science changed its name to Scientific American Frontiers in 1990, and Woodie Flowers served as its host until 1993 when he was replaced by Alan Alda.
10.
In 1990, Woodie Flowers began working with Dean Kamen on FIRST, a project to inspire a culture that celebrates science and technology.
11.
Woodie Flowers introduced the phrase "gracious professionalism" to FIRST, an idea which has since pervaded FIRST literature and culture.
12.
At the 2017 VEX Robotics World Championship, Woodie Flowers was inducted into the STEM Hall of Fame.
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Woodie Flowers was a "Distinguished Partner" at Olin College, a member of the National Academy of Engineering, and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
14.
Woodie Flowers married Margaret Weas, who he met at Louisiana Tech University, in 1967.
15.
Woodie Flowers died on October 11,2019, at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston following complications from aorta surgery.