We asked Dr. Grandin a few questions on behalf of students and teachers.  

Can you tell us about your first experience with inventing or creating something new? When did you know you wanted to be an inventor? 

“Very young, about 7 years old. I spent hours tinkering with little bird kites, experimenting with all different ways to make the wings. One of my favorite books when I was in about third or fourth grade was about famous inventors. I loved reading about Thomas Edison and the invention of the steamship, sewing machine, rubber, and other inventions. And that’s why I wanted to be an inventor – it started at a really young age. Which brings up a really important thing: Getting kids exposed to different things. So many kids today, they don’t grow up using tools. I was using tools in second grade!”  

Inventing is a process, and mistakes, failures, and “wrong answers” are part of that process. Can you tell us how you approach failure in your work?  

“I worked on a project one time that involved putting pigs on a conveyor belt – it made a whole mess and tipped them over backwards. That was a failure, and I got in a real funk about it. But what it made me think about was you need to treat the root causes of problems: One of the reasons they wanted to put pigs on a conveyor belt was because they had a genetic problem called spraddle leg, which makes their legs weak. That’s a problem you correct with breeding, not with equipment. What I learned from that equipment failure was the importance of looking at the root causes of problems and not the symptoms.

“A lot of times you’ll get an idea for something, but then you have to do some tinkering to perfect it. I did that with my little bird kites: I experimented with different ways to bend the wings. And one of the things that I invented – you know the little winglets airliners have on the wings? I had those on my bird kites long before airlines were using them. They were all flying with propellers at that point. So, you just keep tinkering with things until you get it right.” 

On the importance of neurodiversity and working with different types of thinkers:  

“When I was out working on equipment in these great big beef plants, I discovered that about 20% of the people that worked in the shop – these brilliant people who invented mechanical devices – were autistic, dyslexic, or had ADHD,” attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, which is when people have trouble concentrating or sitting still.  

“I’m the kind of visual thinker that’s bad at math – I think in pictures, patterns, and abstractions. Other kinds of thinkers are mathematics minds that would be your typical STEM engineer. But the important thing is that you need both types of these thinkers.  

“Look at the Starliner that’s stuck up on the space station.” (In June 2024, Boeing launched an astronaut mission to the International Space Station (ISS) on board the Starliner spacecraft. Mechanical issues led to thruster failures and helium leaks, and two Starliner astronauts were stranded on the ISS for several months.) “Well, I looked up the valves that were used in those engine thrusters and they connect together just like stuff we use in the livestock industry. Someone didn’t put them together right, and that’s where you need that visual thinker.  

“Now, your degreed engineer, you need him or her to calculate the reentry angle, because if you do that wrong, you’re not going to make it very far. The mathematician can get the reentry angle, but the thrusters get the spacecraft in the right position. If those valves in the thrusters aren’t put together right, you’re going to have helium leaks. And someone didn’t put that stuff together correctly. I looked up those valves and I go ‘Oh, yeah, a normally closed solenoid, I know exactly what those are.’” A normally closed solenoid is a type of valve that remains closed when not energized, preventing the flow of fluids, air, or gases. “Those are used in all kinds of mechanical devices.

“So, you need both kinds of minds to do the engineering on that. Because if your reentry angle is wrong – if they come in too steep, you burn up. If you come in just right, you’re fine. Come in too shallow, you skip off into outer space and die when your air runs out. That’s the mathematician's job. But you have to have the thruster units that will put the spaceship in the correct angle.” That’s the visual thinker’s job. “You need different kinds of minds. You have to have neuro-diverse minds to stay ahead in tech. Period.”  

You’ve talked about the importance of mentors. What would you say to any young people who want a mentor but are having trouble finding one?  

“I've designed and built a lot of things in the livestock industry and the main thing that helped me when I got tough feedback was very good mentors that encouraged me. So, I want to really give credit to some of the fabulous teachers that I had. That mentorship is really important. 

“Something I’ve noticed with young people today – all kinds of young people – is that when they get in trouble at school, they don’t ask for help. So go to people and ask for help!” 

Is there any advice you have for kids today? 

“Find out what you’re interested in. You’ve got to expose kids to interesting stuff to get them interested in interesting things. I got interested in the cattle industry because I was exposed to it as a teenager. I got interested in becoming an inventor because I was given a book about famous inventors and my grandfather was the coinventor of autopilot for airplanes, so he would talk to me about invention and tinkering with things.” He and his partner “figured out how to make this autopilot system with a very simple new technology that all the aviation people thought was ridiculous. And it was in every plane in World War Two.  

“So that’s so much exposure to the idea of inventing things from my grandfather and from that book of famous inventors, and I found out that I liked to tinker with kites and figure out how to make them fly.  

“I think the worst thing schools ever did was take out cooking, sewing, woodworking, welding, machine shops – how can you find out you’re good at those things if you weren’t exposed to them? 

“As I travel around these days, I’m finding a lot of elevators that are not being serviced – that's a job the visual thinkers, ones like me that are bad at math. I went to the Johnson Space Center in Houston, and they’ve totally refurbished the old control room – it's so cool, they light up all the panels, totally refurbished and really cool. But guess what? Broken elevator. We went up five flights of stairs. The visual thinkers like me, the non-mathematicians, we’re the ones who keep the mechanical stuff going.”