Professor wields crossbows
Dan Watson may be the only person you will ever meet who hand-makes and sells crossbows around the world.
He also dresses up in medieval armor and participates in battles. But he’d rather talk to you about computers the teaching he has done here at Utah State for the past twelve years.
Watson began his career studying electrical engineering. He went to work for the U.S. Navy on the Tomahawk Cruise Missile project.
“Most of the work that I did there was not associated with electrical engineering, it was associated with software,” Watson said.
Working with the computers on Navy ships brought some challenges.
“You have to understand that with software that’s running on ships in the Navy, you can’t replace the computers very often. It’s not uncommon to have 20- or 30-year-old computers sitting out there. I found myself writing code for 128 kilobytes of magnetic core memory, just completely outdated technology even at the time, but you had to make it work efficiently.”
He soon found he enjoyed the challenge of making old technology function at a high level.
“I fell in love with the idea of programming the computer at a level that really made the computer work efficiently,” Watson said.
That challenge got him interested in further pursuing computer science.
Contrary to what many people think, computer science is all about creativity, according to Watson.
“The big misconception is that computer science is cut and dried-that there’s no creativity involved.
That is completely false. When you sit down to write a program, you have, on one side of your brain, the problem, and, on the other side of your brain, a solution toward that problem,” he said.
Trying to bridge that gap between the solution and the problem is a creative act.
More than any other major that I can think of, the computer scientist’s job is to create something out of nothing,” he said.
Another commonly held idea about computer science is that those who major in it are “geeks.”
“Most of that is true,” Dr. Watson said with a laugh.
“There are computer scientists who are geeks. But there are also a number of computer scientists who are not geeks and it’s really difficult to find which of those classes you fall into.”
And it’s not only computer scientists, according to Dr. Watson. “Geekdom” sort of invades all of our lives. Who doesn’t deal with e-mail now, or text messages?”
Watson teaches several different classes at USU, but his favorite is a class on parallel programming.
“It’s a hoot,” he says. “We sit down in class and we write programs, right there. We design it and make it happen right there, in the class.”
They also make use of a Beowulf cluster, whichWatson helped design and build on campus.
The cluster is made up of 17 processors all wired together to create one super computer.
Most of the parts were donated, so the total project cost only about $200, he said.
And then there are the medieval tournaments and battles.
“It’s a strange hobby, I understand that. But it’s a unique hobby and it’s something that’s totally and completely different from anything related to my job, which is a good thing,” Watson said. “It’s a full-contact sport,” he said. “We don’t pull any blows.”
Part of these battles involves shooting people with the crossbows he creates by hand.
“I make crossbows that are designed to shoot very large arrows at people. I find the challenge of bringing a piece of wood and aluminum and string together into a functioning unit is kind of magical.”
In addition to the joy of shooting his friends with a crossbow, his craft also brings in some extra cash.
“I have a small business that builds crossbows. They sell for $200-$400 and I sell them all over the world,” he said.
Despite his interesting hobbies, his great passion is teaching students to make computers run more efficiently and working to help them create something out of nothing.
He clearly loves what he does.
“The thing I enjoy as a computer scientist here is that I get to see students who are interested in all kinds of things and all kinds of different applications,” he said.
“Then to get them to use computer science to make their kind of thing happen for them.”
-dfelix@cc.usu.edu