Watercraft Engineering Activitiy
Sail into summer like an America’s Cup racer with a watercraft engineering activity on buoyancy. Towels ahoy!
Lesson: No Valve in Vain
In this activity, teams of students in grades 6 to 8 will learn about the engineering design process and how a one-way valve works by creating heart valves from tape, plastic tubing, and other materials.
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Activity: Design a Super Dome
In this activity, student teams learn about construction and engineering design by building a domed structure with an internal frame that is strong enough to support 120 grams of coins or candy on top. They present their domes to the class and complete reflections on the lessons learned.
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Activity: Keep-A-Cube
Refrigeration is considered one of engineering’s greatest 20th-century achievements. In this activity, student teams in grades K – 6 explore the design process by engineering a way to keep an ice cube from melting for 30 minutes.
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Activity: Conveyor Engineering
In this activity, teams of students in grades 3 to 12 explore how engineers work to solve such societal problems as moving goods, materials, and people by developing a conveyor system out of everyday materials than can transport pieces of candy 4 feet, including a 90-degree turn. Teams evaluate their results and reflect on them as a class.
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SEFI October Newsletter
Click to see SEFI's October newsletter.
Lesson: Target Practice – Pumpkin Launcher
Students in grades 1 to 6 follow the engineering design process to build and test a catapult that launches projectiles, such as marshmallow “pumpkins.” They then make changes to improve their launcher’s aim and distance it can hurl the projectile.
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Lesson: Shake It Up with Seismographs
Students in grades 3 – 12 explore how the development of seismographs has helped save lives worldwide by working in teams to design their own seismograph from everyday items, test its ability to record a simulated classroom earthquake, evaluate their results, and report to the class.
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Activity: Eyewitness to Evaporation
In this week-long activity, student teams in grades 5 – 7 study the effects of evaporation by observing and measuring the ongoing evaporation of water in pans that contain soil or other variables, then then assess what factors may affect evaporation.
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Lesson: Tennis, Anyone?
In this lesson, students in grades 3 - 12 construct a functional racquet out of everyday materials that can volley against another team. They explore how engineers incorporate the latest materials and manufacturing techniques to improve the performance of sports equipment.
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Activity: Straw-Rocket Aeronautics
In this lesson, students in grades 8-10 plan a housing development while also protecting the native species that live there. They conduct research, draw plans, make brochures, and give presentations, with each four-member team having a project manager, civil engineer, environmental engineer, and graphic designer.
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Run Like the Wind
Check out Nike's new track and field uniforms — engineered just in time for the summer Olympics.
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Sustainable Slopes
When snow melts in the Alps, European ski and snowboard fanatics may soon be heading to Skipark 360, 45 minutes from Stockholm, a year-round indoor winter sports arena with everything from downhill skiing to ice hockey and international slalom competitions.
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Seeing the World Through Google-Tinted Glasses
Smartphone addicts everywhere will rejoice at Google's latest portable technology innovation: reality-enhancing eyeglasses. The glasses are a product of Google X, the company’s secretive experimental research lab.
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Lesson: Working Together
In this lesson, students in grades 8-10 plan a housing development while also protecting the native species that live there. They conduct research, draw plans, make brochures, and give presentations, with each four-member team having a project manager, civil engineer, environmental engineer, and graphic designer.
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Student Inventors: Jessica Ashmead, and Annicka Carter
In this new eGFI blog series, we bring you four inspiring stories of undergraduate engineering students who have successfully patented their original ideas, teamed up with classmates and professors to launch businesses, and navigated the startup world, all while keeping up with their coursework.
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Student Inventors: Manu Sharma
Ever dreamed of becoming an entrepreneur? If so, you're in good company – over half of U.S. millennials (ages 18 to 34) say they want to start a business or already have done so, according to a recent survey from the Kaufmann Foundation. Even more exciting is the fact that nowadays, starting a business does not necessitate leaving school, as more and more universities are striving to accommodate entrepreneurial students.
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The Next Generation of Urban Cars
City driving is often a hassle, but recent developments in compact car design could make navigating urban gridlock significantly more tolerable. The next wave of electric vehicles will be sleek, energy-efficient, and small enough to make the Smart Car look like a gas-guzzling giant.
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Lesson: Snack Attack
In this lesson, teams of middle school students explore the engineering design process and the materials used in packaging by designing and testing a package that can protect a snack from heat and water.
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New Housekeeper Satellites to Clean Up Space Junk
After over 50 years of humanity sending things into orbit, outer space is starting to look a bit cluttered. While Russia is reportedly investing over $2 billion to fix the problem, now the Swiss are also poised to join the space cleanup crew.
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Trailblazer: Ayanna Howard
Science fiction stories have served as inspiration for many a brilliant engineer, and Ayanna Howard is no exception. At age 11 she discovered the show Bionic Woman, where a badly injured athlete is given artificial limbs that grant her superhero-like abilities, and decided that she wanted to create technologically advanced prosthetics when she grew up.
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Touchscreens of the Future
Last year, a conceptual, futuristic video featuring interactive glass touchscreens went viral. The video, called “A Day Made of Glass,” was created by Corning (a company that engineers glass and other materials) and now has been viewed over 17 million times on YouTube.
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Jump Shot: Panoramas Made Easy
While painstakingly stitching together images from a recent vacation, Technische Universitat Berlin graduate Jonas Pfeil came up with a better idea: a spherical camera, called a camera-ball, that can take 360-degree panoramas in a single snap.
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Power Up on the Floor
A young inventor in England has come up with a way to capture the ambient kinetic energy of footsteps–or dance moves–and use it to generate electricity.
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3D Body Scanners to Make Custom Jeans
A new company promises to bring 3D scanning technology to clothing stores and shopping malls in the near future.
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Lesson: Dance Pad Mania
In this lesson, pairs of students in grades 4 to 7 learn about the engineering design process and electrical circuits by building a dance pad that sounds a buzzer or flashes a light when stepped on.
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eGFI Best of 2011: Our Top Stories
2011 was another busy year for engineers all over the world. From inventing
a device that turns air into water to exploring the oceans in
a tiny submarine, scientists and engineers are exploring uncharted territory.
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Nearly Half of Schools ‘Failing’
Nearly half of America’s public schools failed to meet federal achievement standards this year, marking the largest failure rate since the No Child Left Behind Law took effect a decade ago, a national report released last week calculates.
Lesson: Sound Booth Construction
In this activity, students in grades 7 – 9 explore the sound-dampening ability of numerous materials by designing and prototyping model sound booths. They learn about how sound is reflected and absorbed, and how it travels through various materials, providing an overview of sound dampening, energy absorption, and sound propagation in the context of engineering.
It's Here! The 5th Edition of Engineering, Go For It
What do the blockbuster movie Avatar, high-performance sports gear, the Angry Birds phone app, and pollution-eating bacteria have in common? They are among a host of fascinating innovations developed by engineers and featured in the newest edition of the American Society for Engineering Education’s (ASEE) Engineering, Go For It magazine.
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Engineering Is: Making Movies
Cartoons have come a long way since the hand-drawn moving pictures of decades past. Now, the animated films at your local cineplex are made possible by sophisticated computer software created by engineers.
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Lesson: Cookie Mining
In this game, teams of students in grades 3 – 8 are introduced to the economics and environmental constraints of mining by extracting “ore” (chocolate chips) from purchased “property” (cookies). They will learn that mining requires investment before resources can be extracted, and that there are costs associated with permits, environmental monitoring, and reclamation.
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Lesson: Can-Do Canoe
In this activity, teams of students in grades 3 -12 explore the engineering design process by building model canoes from everyday materials and testing their design in a basin. The canoes must be able to float for three minutes and, for older students, support a load. Students then evaluate the effectiveness of their canoes and those of other teams, and present their findings to the class.
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Lesson: Dirty Water Project
Civil, chemical, and environmental engineers work together to develop new water treatment systems or to improve existing ones. In this activity, teams of students in grades 3 – 5 investigate different methods (aeration and filtering) for removing pollutants from water, then design and build their own water filters.
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ASEE recognizes the role K-12 educators play in demonstrating exciting engineering concepts to young people. Each summer ASEE convenes a K-12 workshop that gives teachers effective classroom engineering education resources and networking opportunities. In addition, ASEE is home to the popular student-focused eGFI site and teachers' blog. Get the magazine.
ASEE administers fellowships and research opportunities for students--high school through post-doc--and faculty. These federally funded programs ensure U.S. competitiveness through the development of a strong technical workforce. The Air Force Summer Faculty Fellowship is currently accepting applications.
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