TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Investigating Contact Angle
Students observe how water acts differently when placed on hydrophilic and hydrophobic surfaces. They determine which coatings are best to cause surfaces to shed water quickly or reduce the "fogging" caused by condensation.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Exploring the Lotus Effect
Students test and observe the "self-cleaning" lotus effect using a lotus leaf and cloth treated with a synthetic lotus-like superhydrophobic coating. They also observe the Wenzel and Cassie Baxter wetting states by creating and...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Growing and Graphing
Students visit a 2nd and a 4th grade class to measure the heights of older students using large building blocks as a non-standard unit of measure. They can also measure adults in the school community. Results are displayed in...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: A Tasty Experiment
Students conduct an experiment to determine whether or not the sense of smell is important to being able to recognize foods by taste. They do this by attempting to identify several different foods that have similar textures. For some of...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Start Networking!
To get a better understanding of complex networks, students create their own, real social network example by interacting with their peers in the classroom and documenting the interactions. They represent the interaction data as a graph,...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Curb the Epidemic!
Using a website simulation tool, students build on their understanding of random processes on networks to interact with the graph of a social network of individuals and simulate the spread of a disease. They decide which two individuals...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Pingus Penguins: Writing Good Instructions
Students use the free computer game Pingus to learn how engineers, specifically environmental engineers, use their technical writing skills to give instructions and follow the instructions of others. Students learn to write instructions...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Studying Evolution With Digital Organisms
Students observe natural selection in action and investigate the underlying mechanism, including random mutation and differential fitness based on environmental characteristics. They do this through use of the free AVIDA-ED digital...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Evolving Tce Biodegraders
A hypothetical scenario is introduced in which the class is asked to apply their understanding of the forces that drive natural selection to prepare a proposal along with an environmental consulting company to help clean up an area near...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Competing Evolved & Engineered Digital Organisms
Students engineer and evolve digital organisms with the challenge to produce organisms with the highest fitness values in a particular environment. They do this through use of the free Avida-ED digital evolution software application. The...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Artificial Heart Design Challenge
Students are presented with a hypothetical scenario in which they are biomedical engineers asked to design artificial hearts. Using the engineering design process as a guide, the challenge is established and students brainstorm to list...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: If You're Not Part of the Solution!
Students continue the research begun in the associated lesson as if they were biomedical engineers working for a pharmaceutical company. Groups each perform a simple chemical reaction (to precipitate solid calcium out of solution) to...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Accelerometer: Centripetal Acceleration
Students work as physicists to understand centripetal acceleration concepts. They also learn about a good robot design and the accelerometer sensor. They also learn about the relationship between centripetal acceleration and centripetal...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: About Accuracy and Approximation
Students learn about the concepts of accuracy and approximation as they pertain to robotics, gain insight into experimental accuracy, and learn how and when to estimate values that they measure. Students also explore sources of error...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Arctic Animal Robot
Students create four-legged walking robots and measure how far they travel across different types of surfaces. They design and create "shoes" to add to the robots' feet and observe the effect of their modifications on the net distance...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Tug of War Battle Bots
Students are introduced to the concepts of torque, power, friction and gear ratios. Teams modify two robotic LEGO vehicles by changing their gear ratios, wheel sizes, weight and engine power, while staying within a limit of points to...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Test a Beam
Students measure different types of small-sized beams and calculate their respective moments of inertia. They compare their calculations to how much the beams bend when loads are placed on them, gaining insight into the ideal geometry...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Biomimicry: Echolocation in Robotics
Students use ultrasonic sensors and LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT robots to emulate how bats use echolocation to detect obstacles. They measure the robot's reaction times as it senses objects at two distances and with different sensor threshold...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Boom Construction
Student teams design their own booms (bridges) and engage in a friendly competition with other teams to test their designs. Each team strives to design a boom that is light, can hold a certain amount of weight, and is affordable to...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Building Our Bridge to Fun!
Students identify different bridge designs and construction materials used in modern day engineering. They work in construction teams to create paper bridges and spaghetti bridges based on existing bridge designs. Students progressively...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Determining Concentration
Students quantify the percent of light reflected from solutions containing varying concentrations of red dye using LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT bricks and light sensors. They begin by analyzing a set of standard solutions with known...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Decimals, Fractions & Percentages
Students learn about and practice converting between fractions, decimals and percentages. Using a LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT robot and a touch sensor, each group inputs a fraction of its choosing. Team members convert this same fraction into a...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Deformation: Nanocomposite Compression
Students learn about nanocomposites, compression and strain as they design and program robots that compress materials. Student groups conduct experiments to determine how many LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT motor rotations it takes to compress soft...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Ding! Going Up? Elevators and Engineering
Students create model elevator carriages and calibrate them, similar to the work of design and quality control engineers. Students use measurements from rotary encoders to recreate the task of calibrating elevators for a high-rise...