1
Children learn by doing,
by building,
by creating.
Those of us who dream big
can carry that joy of creativity
all through our lives.
Bechtel is proud to present
"Dream Big."
002, -001, 002.
Okay, attitude 25.10,
pitch 64.18 plus 002.
We never really saw our world
until they showed it to us.
Through the power of imagination,
they astonish us.
They're called engineers.
With each life-changing creation,
like the International Space Station,
engineers enhance
the human experience.
They build civilizations.
Every bridge,
every building grows
from an engineer's imagination.
There are now seven billion of us.
And by 2045,
there will be two billion more.
Where will we all live?
Will we have enough clean energy?
The boldest solutions
start with the biggest dreams.
Menzer Pehlivan
grew up in Turkey.
I was a girly girl.
I was a lead in schools plays.
I actually wanted to be an actress.
Until I was 13,
when everything changed.
We lived in a high-rise building.
I remember my mother
waking me up,
terrified that the building
would come down.
I remember watching
the people suffering.
From that moment on,
I knew what I wanted to do.
Today, I'm a professional
engineer in Seattle,
hoping to make structures
safer during earthquakes.
I love my job.
And I want kids to be
excited about engineering
as much as I am.
So, are you ready for the earthquake?
- Yeah!
- Yeah?
Three, two, one.
Let's start slow.
- Which one is...
- Go faster.
To design safer buildings,
we study how soil moves
during an earthquake.
The engineers test
building prototypes
on the big shake table.
To learn more, Menzer studied
countries like Nepal,
where earthquakes can be severe.
Nepal is a very poor country,
where most of the houses were built
without any engineering design.
Stone houses, they're an
accident waiting to happen.
In 2015,
a massive earthquake struck Nepal.
8,000 lost their lives.
But some survived.
Including the miracle baby,
buried in the rubble for 22 hours.
To do her part,
Menzer took time off from work
and flew to Nepal
to join a team
of fact-finding engineers.
We collect data on ground failures
before the evidence washes away.
We need to work fast.
(speaking foreign language)
Namaste. Namaste.
Namaste. Namaste.
Different types of soils
act differently.
Some soils act like a Jell-0.
Others act like a liquid
and lose all their strength.
Farmers led us to a field,
where carrots popped
out of the ground--
a clue that this soil
acted like a liquid
during the earthquake.
That's what we call liquefaction.
I remember when I was 13.
I know what these kids
are going through.
The emotional aftershock
of an earthquake
can last for years.
This is why I became an engineer.
After leaving Nepal,
Menzer went to San Francisco.
Here, engineers had
a unique challenge--
designing the city's
tallest skyscraper
at a site prone to liquefaction.
The engineers solved it
from the ground up.
Menzer's team tours the site,
where engineers sunk
massive concrete columns
all the way down to bedrock
to resist earthquakes.
Keeping people safe
has always been the heart
and soul of engineering.
II'
The first emperor of China
faced a problem:
Mongol warriors were invading
from the north.
So the emperor's engineers
began building something
that would preserve
their civilization
for almost 2,000 years.
The Great Wall grew to be
13,000 miles long...
the largest structure
ever built by humans.
After centuries of erosion
and earthquakes,
much of the wall survives.
Steve Burrows,
an engineer from England,
has come to investigate.
It's really tough to study the wall
when it stands there
right on a knife edge
on the top of a mountain.
But we have our ways.
This is lidar,
the laser imaging device.
The lidar showed that the most
precisely built parts
are standing well today.
However, miles away, badly
built sections of the wall
are also still standing.
Why?
500 years ago,
the builders added
a secret ingredient
to their mortar:
sticky rice.
Adding sticky rice and lime
to the mortar,
it makes the mortar more elastic
'cause it allows the wall
to stretch and contract
depending on the temperature.
Sometimes the best solution
is the simplest--
the one staring up at you
from your dinner plate.
In western China,
across the highest bridges
on Earth,
people are moving
from farms to cities.
Shanghai is now the most
populous city in the world--
24 million people.
But there's a problem.
No more space to build.
Where can they all live?
Engineers squeezed
an entire urban district
into one city block...
by going vertical.
They envisioned
China's tallest building,
the Shanghai Tower,
rising 128 floors high
with space for 16,000 people.
But the taller the structure,
the more it flirts
with Mother Nature.
Each summer,
typhoons blast the city.
The Shanghai Tower would soon
become a huge target.
But the engineers had
some tricks up their sleeve.
By twisting the outer skin
120 degrees,
the wind safely glides
around the tower.
Here, the problem
of population density
has been met.
All thanks to the ingenuity
of a twist.
Wind is an intriguing chaflenge
for engineers of all ages.
Menzer makes a game of it.
Okay, this competition
will count as ten points.
And the tallest skyscraper
that resists the wind
will get five extra.
Yay! Excited?
All right.
Now, remember, planning is important.
Before cutting...
make sure what you're building.
Building these paper skyscrapers
teach kids the most
important thing...
engineering is fun.
Oh, it's getting...
Oh, no!
In 1940,
the newly opened Tacoma
Narrows Bridge, near Seattle,
earned the nickname Galloping Gertie.
A moderate wind gusting
to 40 miles an hour
made the bridge bounce...
resulting in collapse.
Fortunately, no one was killed.
Engineers learn from catastrophes.
New insights about the impact
of wind on suspension bridges
have led to better designs.
Near Menzer's home in Seattle,
two safer bridges have
replaced Galloping Gertie.
A large bridge can connect people.
And so can a small one.
II'
After graduating from college,
a young bridge engineer
had a choice to make--
accept a high-paying Ib
or follow her heart.
Today, Avery Bang
leads a team of passionate engineers
building foot bridges
in poor countries.
In Haiti,
I worked with kids
whose village was isolated.
Just across river
was the only school.
And they could see it,
it was right there,
but they just couldn't get to it.
Over the past decade,
50 people have drowned
trying to cross this river.
A man who grew up by the river,
Fritz Touissand,
offered to help.
He had a very personal stake
in this bridge.
Three years ago,
when our youngest girl
needed medicine,
Mathilde, my wife, headed off
to the clinic across the river.
The river was very high that day.
Now I have eight children
to raise on my own.
To get to school,
my kids cross the river
right where their mother drowned.
Mathilde was everything
to them.
They needed a bridge.
At least, it's going to be
a really big bridge.
Our mantra
is "Keep it simple."
With this new hinge
design Avery came up with,
the crew can raise tall towers,
using nothing but ropes.
...erected from
horizontal to vertical.
Right. Okay.
A young Haitian engineer
named Junior Pierre Louis
has joined the team.
Working with local
engineers like Junior
has a ripple effect.
Today, we're building one bridge.
Tomorrow, they may build
ten more on their own.
Sometimes in my tears
I drown
But I never let it
get me down
So when negativity
surrounds J
I know some day
it'll all turn around
Because all my life
I've been waiting for
I've been praying for
For the people to say
That we don't wanna
fight no more
There'll be no more wars
And our children will play
- One day, one day
- One day, one day
One day
Oh, oh, oh, one day
- One day
- One day, one day
One day, oh, oh, oh
It's not about
win or lose J
'Cause we all lose
when they feed J
J On the souls of the innocent
Blood-drenched pavement
Keep on moving
Though the waters
stay raging
In this maze,
you can lose your way
J Your way
It might
drive you crazy but
Don't let it phase you,
no way
No way
All my life I've been
waiting for, waiting for
I've been praying for,
praying for
For the people to say
That we don't wanna
fight no more
Fight no more
J There'll be no more war
And our children will play
- One day, one day
- One day, one day
- One day
- One day
- One day, one day
- One day, one day
- One day
- One day
Oh, oh, oh
Ooh, ooh
Ah-yah-ah...
Avery's decision to follow her heart
has had a huge impact.
Her team of engineers
has volunteered
to build nearly 200 bridges
where they're needed most.
Similar engineering groups
have built thousands
more worldwide.
Every waterway challenges engineers.
For centuries, trains could
climb Scotland's rugged hills,
but boats?
It once took an entire day
fer a beat to be raised here,
using 11 cumbersome locks.
But then, a team
of visionary engineers
reinvented the wheel--
The Falkirk Wheel.
The arm with the heavier boat
carries less water,
so the wheel always remains
perfectly balanced.
It uses just a wee bit
of electricity.
'Cause I'm on top
of the world, hey
I'm on top of the world, hey
Waiting on this
for a while now
Paying my dues to the dirt
I've been waiting
to smile, hey
Holding it in for a while, hey
Take you with me if I can
Been dreaming of this
since a child J
I'm on top of the world.
II
Falkirk is frugal with electricity.
But renewable energy
holds an even brighter future.
From their small town in Mississippi,
these high school students
will take the solar car
they built themselves
and compete in the Solar Challenge.
Some of the kids have never
been to the next county,
much less Australia.
II
My name's Ajay Patel.
I'm in the tenth grade
and this is my second year
on the solar car team.
I like the hands-on part,
where you can actually,
like, drill
and use our brains more
and solve problems.
In the Solar Challenge,
the world's top university teams
will race 1,600 miles
on solar power alone.
All the cars are kind
of strange and elegant.
They're really extreme and expensive.
A-All of 'em except for one.
I can almost see it
That dream I'm dreaming
It's seriously hot inside the car.
120 degrees Fahrenheit.
The struggles I'm facing
It's not moving.
The chances I'm taking
J' Sometimes might
knock me down
But no, I'm not breaking
I gotta be strong
There's always gonna be
another mountain J
I'm always gonna want
to make it move J
Always gonna be
an uphill battle
Sometimes I'm gonna
have to lose...
Our new lithium batteries
aren't holding a charge.
By tilting the solar panels
towards the sun,
we were able to squeeze
just a bit more power
out of the batteries.
Just enough to keep going.
It's the climb...
And we were proud
to cross the finish line.
Even if we were the last ones.
Solar energy can power a single car
or an entire city.
The world's largest solar facility,
the lvanpah Solar Electric
Generating System,
reduces C02 emissions
by over 1,000 tons every day.
Hundreds of thousands of mirrors
slowly pivot to keep the hot spot
focused on the boiler
at the top.
Water inside turns to steam
and drives turbines,
which produce electricity
for our cities,
like Phoenix, Arizona...
where Angelica Hernandez
is an engineer
working on renewable energy.
I feel like
I've really got it all.
You know, I have
an amazing husband,
I have a super cute baby
and a job as an engineer,
which...
which is one of my dreams.
But, you know,
I didn't start out that way.
I grew up
on the poor side of town.
My mom worked really, really hard
just m get by
Then I went
to Carl Hayden High School,
where I met an amazing,
inspiring teacher
who changed my life:
Fredi Lajvardi.
So I see one way
you could solve this.
You could stop your catapult...
I joined his
after-school robotics class
and the problems
weren't easy to solve,
but Fredi always knew
how to make it fun.
That will leave you
with a higher trajectory...
You're doing a good job.
The kids were just
having so much fun.
They were learning so much.
They didn't even realize
that they were learning
and that was the best part.
Good catch!
Awesome.
They heard about
a national underwater
robotics competition
in Santa Barbara, California.
And, on a whim,
decided to enter.
Heads up!
We didn't have much funding.
But if you can't be expensive,
be clever.
So we used cheap landscaping pipe.
In Robotics Club,
Fredi taught us a system:
to find the problem, come up
with different solutions
and pick the best one.
But the one problem
we couldn't solve
was the smell of the pipe glue.
It just stunk.
So we named our robot Stinky.
- It's working, yeah.
- Yes.
Stinky was a bunch of pipe
with a little bit of CPU
and a whale lot of cables.
Six months and $800 later,
Stinky was ready to go.
Here, guys,
let's, uh, hurry up
and get Stinky in here.
Sadly, Angelica
had work commitments,
and had to miss the trip.
I was really disappointed,
but, you know,
I said my good-byes
and off they went.
Stop me on the corner
I swear, you hit me like a vision
I-I-I wasn't expecting
But who am I to tell fate
Where it's supposed
to go with it? J
Don't you blink,
you might miss it
See we got a right
to just love it or leave it
You find it and keep it
'Cause it ain't every day
you get the chance to say
Oh, esto comienza' asi
J This is how it's done
Sintiendo el corazon
Lightning strikes the heart
Abriendo sin temor
Brillando mas que'el sol
The team arrived in Santa Barbara
the day before the competition.
Que puede alumbrar
Some of the best engineering
programs in the country
compete, like MIT, the champs
from the year before.
Sintiendo el corazon
Lightning strikes the heart
We were going with the mindset
that we were going
mainly as observers.
And if we beat just one college,
that would be phenomenal.
It goes off like a gun
Brillando mas que'el sol.
When we arrived there, I mean,
we looked like the carnival
had arrived.
II'
Just a raggedy robot.
Looked like we'd just
pieced together
everything from a junkyard.
That's MIT.
The other robots
were like pieces of
underwater jewelry.
They were chrome.
There was stainless steel.
There were manufactured plastics.
These high school kids
wanted to quickly test Stinky
before anyone noticed them.
The robot was going left
when they wanted it to go right.
It wouldn't go up
when they wanted it to go up.
We had to figure out
what was going on.
Fredi has always told his students
when you get in a jam,
start asking smart questions.
We had a small leak
but no clue where it was.
If we can't find the leak,
what can we do?
And then Lorenzo asked everybody,
"Aren't tampons really absorbent?"
This was a do-or-die
kind of situation.
- I got 'em!
- Yeah! -Yes!
It wasn't about building a robot.
It was about learning
how to learn for yourself.
The boys arrived
at the competition exhausted,
without a chance to test Stinky.
Carl Hayden High School,
- you have one minute.
- Let's go, guys!
Do it! You can do it!
We had no idea
if the solution would work.
Thanks to a wild idea,
Stinky was working again.
The boys had 30 minutes
to complete ten tasks.
The college teams had a laser
to measure distances.
Carl Hayden couldn't afford one.
They used a tape measure instead.
The hardest task
was to sample a fluid
from a barrel...
with a tube.
Most of the teams
didn't even attempt it.
When we went straight to it,
it just-just fell into it,
like it was meant to be
or something.
At the awards banquet,
they heard something
that surprised everyone.
And second place goes to...
...Massachusetts Institute
of Technology!
MIT got second place.
I was thinking, "Who's first?
"Oh, man, who's-- who beat MIT?
This is, this is gonna be awesome."
First place goes to...
Carl Hayden High School
from Phoenix, Arizona!
Oh!
It was almost disbelief.
Is this a dream or is this for real?
I don't remember walking to the stage,
because, you know,
I was just floating, I think.
What started out as a crazy idea
turned into something so much more.
Today, that high school robotics club
has grown exponentially,
largely thanks to Fredi.
Knowing that somebody believes in you,
even though you don't
believe in yourself,
even though you doubt
that you could do something,
um, I think, you know, if you
could find that in somebody,
it's just... it's a blessing.
It was because of him
that Angelica went to Stanford.
Now my husband Juan and I
are both engineers in Phoenix.
And, I mean, you never know.
Maybe my daughter will be one, too.
And any chance I get,
I like to help
my favorite teacher
inspire future engineers.
...the same thing
with this one.
It's not doing it,
because it's a triangle.
It's very solid.
It doesn't change shape.
So now we want you
to come up with different ways
to make the bridge stronger--
so you see the truck
in front of you--
so it can make it
across the bridge.
- You guys want to try that?
- Yeah!
- All right. Let's try it.
- Hey, let's do it.
Well, I think they need
to try to have more triangles.
There's barely any support
going along the bottom.
Yeah, I think they
should put a sign
and say "no trucks allowed."
The screw's not stable, period,
because it fell apart.
- The whole bridge.
- It's not stable at all.
We have to remind ourselves
about budget cost.
Yeah, but how about we cross
that bridge when we come to it?
Because I think...
Young minds find new paths.
It was not physics alone
that led to
the Millau Bridge in France--
it was art.
- That one!
- That one over there, right?
And what are the triangles for?
Young minds will shape our future.
- It provides, uh, stability,
- right? - Yeah.
Some young engineers have a bold dream
to revolutionize transportation.
It's called Hyperloop.
If they succeed, they'll allow us
to travel 700 miles per hour.
That's from I.A. to
San Francisco in 30 minutes.
By the end of the century,
90% of us will live in cities,
an exciting challenge for engineers.
The bigger cities get,
the smarter they'll need to become.
This new transportation hub
in San Francisco will feature
a network of wireless sensors.
This will make it safer,
more energy-efficient,
and smarter.
The more urban we become,
the more we need trees,
gardens,
and places to play.
The word "engineer"
means "ingenious."
I love being an engineer.
I create things from nothing.
From blank sheets of paper,
I can change cities.
I can change the future.
Sometimes in my tears
I drown
But I never let it
get me down
So when negativity
surrounds J
I know someday
it'll all turn around because
All my life
I've been waiting for
I've been praying for
- For the people to say
- I, I, I, I, I, oh
- That we don't wanna fight no more
- J' I, I, I, I, I, oh
There will be no more wars
And our children will play
One day, one day
One day
- Oh
- One day, one day
One day
Oh, oh, oh
Ooh...
The joy of engineering the future
belongs to the young.
What better time
to start dreaming big.
II'
Oh, oh, oh, all my life
I've been waiting for
I've been praying for
- For the people to say
- I, I, I, I, I, oh
- That we don't wanna fight no more
- J' I, I, I, I, I, oh
There will be no more wars
And our children will play
One day, one day
One day
Oh, oh, oh
Ooh...