Teach Engineering
How Big? Necessary Area and Volume for Shelter
Teams must determine the size of cavern needed to house the citizens of Alabraska to protect them from the asteroid impact. Using scaling properties, teams first determining the number of people that could sleep in a classroom and then...
Teach Engineering
Portable Wheelchair Ramp Challenge
Ramp up the engineering design process in your classroom with an activity that challenges teams to design, build, and test a small-scale portable wheelchair ramp. The class develops design requirements, and teams test their designs...
Teach Engineering
Combustion and Air Quality: Emissions Monitoring
Help your class determine the types of pollutants coming from vehicle exhaust. Groups use an air quality monitor to determine the emissions from different vehicles, to gain knowledge about combustion energy, and to predict how the...
Teach Engineering
Above-Ground Storage Tank Design Project
The challenge: determine whether a tank will float. A design activity has groups work as engineering teams in order to determine the stability of given tanks and liquid contents. The teams need to determine the equations to...
Teach Engineering
Thinking Green!
Encourage your class to solve local environmental issues. Groups brainstorm environmental issues that are affecting the community, choose one they want to solve, and design a product or service to solve their chosen issue. They then...
Teach Engineering
Designing a Robotic Surgical Device
The engineering design process meets laparoscopic surgical robots with an activity that is the last part in a series of 10 and brings all the lessons of the unit together. Teams design and build a remotely controlled laparoscopic device....
Teach Engineering
Challenges of Laparoscopic Surgery
Get some laparoscopic training without the pain with an activity that challenges class members to find out what it is like to perform laparoscopic surgery. Teams perform three different tasks and quantify their performance. The...
Teach Engineering
Android App Development
Building an accelerometer app for your Android device. Groups develop an app that uses the accelerometer on an Android device. The purpose of the activity is to reinforce the programming design. The post activity assessment challenges...
Teach Engineering
The Magician's Catapult
Class members work in pairs to build a catapult to launch a grape a given distance. The catapult project, a compound machine, reinforces pupils' understanding of simple machines.
Teach Engineering
Machines and Tools (Part 2)
Which pulley system will give us a whale of a good time? Teams compare the theoretical and actual mechanical advantages of different pulley systems. They then form a recommendation for how to move a whale from an aquarium back to the ocean.
Teach Engineering
Tools and Equipment (Part 1)
Looking for the best inclined plane for the job? Groups calculate the theoretical mechanical advantage for four different inclined planes. They determine the actual mechanical advantage by measuring the amount of force needed for the...
Teach Engineering
A Simple Solution for the Circus
Class members are challenged to design a device that will move a circus elephant into a train car. Groups brainstorm ideas that use simple machines to load the elephant. They then choose one of their ideas, sketch a plan, and present it...
Teach Engineering
Egg-cellent Landing
The classic egg-drop experiment gets a new bounce with an activity that asks pairs to design a lander similar to one used to land a rover on Mars within a fixed budget. The activity provides a great introduction to the idea of...
Teach Engineering
Red Rover Robotics
Help your class understand the importance of exploration using robots. with a resource that provides a short history of robotics as a lead into looking at Martian robotic exploration missions. The activity specifically looks at the...
Teach Engineering
Trash to Treasure!
One person's trash is another man's treasure. Challenge your class to build something useful out of the trash they throw away on a regular basis. Groups design and build a practical item from trash they collect, allowing the class to...
Teach Engineering
Protecting Our City with Levees
Teams use the design process to design, build, and test a model levee to protect the town from a wall of water. A handout provides a price list for the materials learners can use to build their levee within a budget.
Teach Engineering
Hurricanes
When a levee fails, it means disaster. Introduce your class to hurricanes and the technologies used to help protect against them. The included presentation provides background information using Hurricane Katrina as a reference.
Teach Engineering
Weather Alert
Every time a bell rings ... there is lightning in the area. The activity provides directions to build a model of a lightning detection system. Similar to a system designed by Benjamin Franklin, the system uses static...
Teach Engineering
Storing Android Accelerometer Data: App Design
There's an app for that! Pupils learn to build an app that will store data on an Android. The instructional activity introduces class members to the tiny database, TinyDB, for Android devices. A video tutorial provides an...
Teach Engineering
Earthquakes Living Lab: Locating Earthquakes
There are patterns in nearly everything — even earthquakes. Pairs research current earthquakes to see if there are any patterns. They determine the mean, median, and mode of the earthquake data, along with the maximum and...
Teach Engineering
Earthquakes Living Lab: Geology and Earthquakes in Japan
Sometimes it seems as if earthquakes hit the same places over and over again. Class members study Japan in order to determine why earthquakes keep happening there. Pairs work together to research and try to determine whether there...
Teach Engineering
Earthquakes Living Lab: FAQs about P Waves, S Waves and More
Let's talk about earthquakes .... Using the Internet, pupils research what causes earthquakes, how scientists measure them, their locations, and their effects. The resource is not only informative, but it also builds crucial...
Teach Engineering
Earthquakes Living Lab: Finding Epicenters and Measuring Magnitudes
Pairs use an online simulation to determine the epicenter and magnitude of an earthquake. Using real data about the earthquake's maximum S wave amplitudes, they then determine the magnitude. The resource provides a great career...
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Conveyor Engineering
Moving along the line. Class members research how a conveyor belt works in order to gain background information. Groups then design a conveyor belt that will carry a piece of candy four feet and along a 90-degree turn. The groups...