1. What surprised me most about the Wright Brothers is that while both of them where tremendously bright, they did not attend college and they operated a bicycle shop selling their own designs of bicycles.
What I most admired about the Wright Brothers is their determination and dedication to innovation despite adversity and everyone saying that they were crazy. When their main inspiration Otto Lilienthal died in a glider crash, the boys decided to carry on their work rather than give up because they saw the possibility of failure.
What I least admired about the Wright Brothers is that Wilbur specifically had a great temper and because of one hockey injury, cancelled all plans to attend Yale and didn't even finish high school. I would have liked to see him overcome that adversity.
These brother did encounter adversity in many different forms, for example there is the adversity that Wilbur encountered in my last question but also when they were developing designs for their planes before they found success, they encountered great adversity because everyone thought they were crazy but they kept pursuing their dream of flight.
The competencies that these entrepreneurs exhibited were their intense passion for the pursuit of flight and their intellect that allowed them to overcome the obstacles that creating something so new would present them with.
If I was able to ask the Wright Brothers two questions, I would ask them how they felt when their role model and inspiration for flight Otto Lilienthal died doing a glider test because that meant that they would be carrying on with his work and saw the reality of the consequences of failure. I would also ask them how they carried on with their work while everyone around them told them that it wouldn't be possible.
One part of the reading that was confusing to me was how the actual idea of their flight project came about and how they were able to figure it out by using such basic materials. I don't know how they were able to make such a profound creation from mere household items.
I think that the Wright Brothers had a very fond opinion of hard work and that you can learn more from your failures than your successes and I share this opinion because they failed so many times but kept tweaking their invention and eventually found success along the way.
Kyle,
ReplyDeleteI enjoy your perspective on the Wright brothers since I have general knowledge of their journey but nothing specific. I did not know their role model and inspiration had died testing a glider and that is a huge obstacle to overcome. Also you say that one of the Wright brother skipped out on going to Yale but maybe if he had gone he wouldn't have contributed to the innovations he did. Many people thing college is an essential part of development but not for all people. Nice writeup.