Lockheed Martin engineers get a chance to play on Space Day

There’s something about Lockheed Martin’s Space Day plans that reminds us of the 1983 geekcult classic WarGames.
Maryland-based Lockheed Martin, which has offices throughout the region, including Cherry Hill, and is usually embroiled in our ongoing coverage of scary regional military tech innovation (yes, we’re considering a regular category), is doing something for the kids.
The company plans to ooh-and-ahh middle-schoolers by showing off human-computer interaction concepts with Nintendo Wii remotes, according to a press release.
The demonstrations will take place on May 1 at Lockheed’s Advanced Technology Laboratories locations in New Jersey and Virginia in celebration of the company’s international Space Day, its effort to scout K-12 geeks globally.
“Shall we play a game?”
Engineers will pair Wiimote controllers with Tangible User Interface applications, and wax poetic about interface interaction by speech, gestures and intuition.
The company will also be showing off computer networking, engineering principals, and robotics—yawn. And a small rocket will be launched—rawr.
In attendance will be employee children and local students from Carusi Middle School in Cherry Hill, Howard M. Phifer Middle School in Pennsauken and Bear Tavern Science Fair winners in Titusville.
C’mon Lockheed, let’s not kid ourselves. We know this is less about the kids as it is about getting a Wii console in the company break room. We’re planning the same here at Technically Philly—soon as we get an office.