I knew a fellow at college who was awesome at setting up experiments and having them work. He worked with some incredibly bright post-grads and post-docs who couldn't scramble an egg. Sometimes you get these two "intelligences" in the same person. Usually you don't. We're better when we recognize different talents and work together.

I had a friend at school who had phenomenal spatial awareness, but was dyslexic and had trouble with maths, while I find the maths relatively easy but only have good spatial awareness. Together, we could design and build things neither of us would be able to make work on our own -- with my friend being the driving force, as he only needed help in getting his ideas to work, while I had more trouble getting the ideas in the first place.

"Almost every modern invention is heavily math driven" - citation?

Anyway, no one is advocating the building of bridges by school kids who can build things without math. The article advocates giving school kids who have great spacial skills, but not apparently great math or written skills, a chance to participate in technical greatness.

Engineering school is almost entirely math. It's applied to structures, to electrical circuits, to fluid flow, but the essence of it is all the same - using math to describe things.

Yes, a lot of design doesn't require calculations to be done on the spot, but almost every design made by an engineer will be informed from the beginning by their knowledge of math.

It's hard to think of a modern invention that's as big as the internal combustion engine or the aeroplane, but any recently designed item you buy today has had math applied to almost every facet of it. The design process for a product case uses extensive geometry, the design of gearboxes uses extensive mathematical modelling - pretty much every mechanism that's manufactured will be first described mathematically.

Even things that don't have complicated mathematical models describing them will have had some form of math applied to inform the initial design process. You can't design a lever without taking into account it's length, the moment it applies etc - that's all maths!

Technical greatness in our world requires math. You can't design and build a truly unique and functional device without applying some form of math to it.

Certainly spacial awareness is absolutely fantastic. It lets a designer envisage a concept in their mind, think through how something will work and identify the pitfalls of a concept before anything is put to paper, but it's not a replacement for mathematical ability when it comes to actually designing a functional mechanism or mechanical system.

Engineering school is taught by people who were good at Engineering school. ITs a tight, closed loop with high gain. That's not an argument about what Engineering school Should Be.

Of course mathematics is important. But the initial design is done, I would say ALWAYS done, by intuition. The math is then applied.

Do you know how many gifted math students in my Engineering college could not begin to imagine the layout of a circuit, or a piece of software, or even a bridge, without looking it up in a book? I was a grader for 2 years, and it was shocking how lacking most folks are in this way.

Do you know of any electrical device that was designed with out doing the circuit analysis, just spatially slapped the parts together? Do you know of any buildings taller than a story that were built spatially without doing any analysis of load? When was the last time you heard of a car that was put together by someone who didn't do the math to make sure the engine wouldn't explode at speed? Try building an artificial hart without doing the flow analysis. Being good at math isn't a sufficient condition to be a great engineer but it is a necessary condition.