Until now our TL;DR Shorts have been bite-sized nibbles of interesting thoughts brought to you by people from across our research community. Each video is usually under 3-minutes long, and effectively something you can enjoy while you make your midweek cup of caffeine. However, this week’s episode of TL;DR Shorts is what our co-producer has coined a TL;DR Long – at almost six-minutes you can make your drink AND scoff a couple of biscuits. Don’t thank me – thank today’s guest contributor, and last night’s Speaker Series Live lecturer, Rodney Mullen, who we also caught up with last month for a longer chat.
Rodney is a trained chemical engineer, an inventor with patents to his name, an entrepreneur thanks to his involvement in a series of companies and organisations, a guest scientist and engineer affiliated with many institutions, and… *checks notes* …oh yes, one of the most prolific and impactful skateboarders of all time. No big deal. He is widely known within the skating community and beyond as the “godfather of street skateboarding”, owing to his innovative tricks that helped take skating from the empty pools of California to the streets of every village, town, and city.
This innovative and experimental approach to skating extends to Rodney’s contributions to the world of the science of skateboarding, and in this TL;DR Long episode Rodney talks about some of the places that his chemical creativity has taken him, and why it is important to include a diverse range of minds in teams of problem solvers, and include those from the community that you are trying to impact positively.
You can watch our chat with Rodney on the Science of Skateboarding here, and look out for his Speaker Series Live lecture on the Royal Institution’s YouTube channel which will be released later this month.
If you’d like to suggest future contributors for our series or suggest some topics you’d like us to cover, drop Suze a message on one of our social media channels and use the hashtag #TLDRShorts. Subscribe now to be notified of each weekly release of the latest TL;DR Short, and catch up with the entire series here.
