Young people in Britain have become a lost generation who can no longer mend gadgets and appliances because they have grown up in a disposable world, the professor giving this year’s Royal Institution Christmas lectures has warned.

在英國皇家科學研究所的圣誕講座上，一位教授發出警告：英國年輕人已經淪為迷惘的一代。他們生活在這個用完即扔的“一次性”的時代，沒有能力修理那些小器械和電器。

Danielle George, Professor of Radio Frequency Engineering, at theUniversityofManchester, claims that the under 40s expect everything to ‘just work’ and have no idea what to do when things go wrong.

丹尼爾·喬治是曼徹斯特大學的射頻工程學教授。他聲稱40歲以下的人只期望自己的物品“能用就成”，當這些用品損壞時，他們毫無辦法。

Unlike previous generations who would ‘make do and mend’ now young people will just chuck out their faulty appliances and buy new ones.

不像過去那代人，東西壞了想到的是修補一下接著使用；現在年輕人能做的只有將這些壞產品扔掉，再去買一個新的。

But Prof George claims that many broken or outdated gadgets could be fixed or repurposed with only a brief knowledge of engineering and electronics.

然而，喬治教授聲稱，很多損壞和過時的小器械其實只需要掌握一些簡單的工程和電子知識就可以修好，并得以重新使用。

This year’s Royal Institution Christmas Lectures are entitled ‘Sparkswill fly: How to hack your home’ she is hoping it will inspire people to think what else they can do with common household objects.

“創意火光四射：如何扮靚你的家”是今年圣誕講座的主題，旨在鼓勵人們去思考那些日常家居用品還能如何使用以裝扮房間。

Ideas include using a magnifying glass and shoe box to turn a mobile phone into a rudimentary projector; how to use tin foil to make too small batteries fit correctly and how to turn a bottle of water into a lamp.

創意包括：用放大鏡和鞋盒把手機改裝為簡化的投影儀；用錫紙幫助小電池安裝的更加貼合；以及如何將一瓶水轉化為一盞燈。

Prof George said: “We’ve got a lost generation that has grown up with factory electronics that just work all of the time.

喬治教授說道：“我們這個時代的年輕人已經淪為迷惘的一代。在他們的成長過程中，處處伴隨著工廠生產的一直可以正常使用的電子產品。”

“All of these things in our home do seem to work most of the time and because they don’t break we just get used to them. They have almost become like Black Boxes which never die. And when they do we throw them away and buy something new.

“所有這些用品似乎都會一直工作下去，因為只要它們沒壞，我們也就漸漸習慣了它們的使用。這些用品幾乎就要變成像黑匣子那樣永生不死的東西。當它們無法使用時，我們就會扔掉它們，然后去買一些新的替代品。”

“But there is now a big maker community who are thinking hard about what we do with all of these gadgets. They are remaking and repurposing things.

“但是現在有一家大型的制造商社區，針對我們所有不用的器械進行相關研究。他們打算改造這些用品，并進行再利用。

“I talked to someone who had used some LEDs on his bike so that he could put up a message as he was cycling.”

“我有一個朋友，他在自行車上安裝了LED屏，這樣他在騎車時車身可以展示信息。”

Hundreds of websites have emerged in the last few years where users post ideas about home hacks and electronics.

在過去幾年里，已經涌現出成百上千的網站。網民們可以在這些網站上自由交流房間改裝和設備修理的經驗。

（翻譯：490252028 編輯：Helen）