Entrepreneurs, says George Mason University School of Business professor David Miller, tend to work in interdisciplinary teams.
"There's an engineer to make things work, a designer to make it pretty and a business person to sell it," he says. "An entrepreneur needs to have some idea what everyone does in order to be successful at leading the team."
Which is why on a Wednesday afternoon Miller was watching George Mason students from a variety of majors in Enterprise Hall's Innovation Lab disassemble electronic toys, musical keyboards, disposable cameras, computer hard drives and a GameBoy controller, among other donated devices. The session, hosted by Mason MakerSpace, was called "Take It and Break It." And they did.
It looked more like a shop class, with students using hand tools to take apart gadgets and study their components as facilitator Jade Garrett encouraged them to get their hands somewhat dirty. The fields of study of those unscrewing, prying and otherwise wrecking the objects included computer science, accounting and marketing, among others. The non-academic fun was enriched by Garrett's analysis of how the things were made and what each element did to contribute to the product.
Applied information technology major Jennifer Nguyen enjoyed the chance to disassemble an electronic gadget to get an idea of how much is involved in bringing a concept to market. "I have a couple of projects that I'd like to see if I can make," she said.
Senior Octavio Cisneros also has ideas he'd like to bring to market, and this experience was good for him. "If you know how something is made and how it works, you have an advantage," the government and international politics major said. "When you open it up, you have a different perspective."
Meanwhile, Sándor Nyerges was explaining to a table of rapt listeners how a disposable camera's lens works in tandem with the human optical system. Nyerges, an electrical engineer who runs the School of Physics, Astronomy and Computational Sciences machine shop, also explained how diodes work as Blake Ross, a junior finance major, disassembled an electronic piano keyboard and MBA student Faiza Alam examined the insides of a musical plastic toy.
Alam, who cofounded an in-home music instruction company called Create More Music Studios, was drawn to the "Take It and Break It" session to break down the inner workings of entrepreneurial teams.
"I want to see the different aspects to having a business and having people working with you," she said. "It's important to learn the roles others play on the team."
Miller explained that the "Break It" session was intended as a "pre-marketing" event for Mason MakerSpace, which will open in August. A makerspace is a creative workplace for inventors, entrepreneurs, engineers and designers to work on ideas.
"MakerSpace is student-planned and student-run, and this event helps us find the community to do that," Miller said.