Ding! Going Up? Elevators and Engineering
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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 calibra... ...moreStudents 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 building. They translate the rotations from an encoder to correspond to the heights of different floors in a hypothetical multi-story building. Students also determine the accuracy of their model elevators in getting passengers to their correct destinations. ...less |
Activity |
2013-06-11 |
Subject Areas: 3 Curricular Units: 0 Lessons: 0 Details |
Human Water Cycle
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Students learn about the human water cycle, or how humans impact the water cycle by settling down in civilizations. Specifically, they learn how people obtain, use and dispose of water. Students also ... ...moreStudents learn about the human water cycle, or how humans impact the water cycle by settling down in civilizations. Specifically, they learn how people obtain, use and dispose of water. Students also learn about shortages of treated, clean and safe water and learn about ways that engineers address this issue through water conservation and graywater recycling. ...less |
Lesson |
2013-06-07 |
Subject Areas: 1 Curricular Units: 1 Activities: 1 Details |
Shades of Gray(water)
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Students are introduced to the concepts of graywater and water reuse within households. They calculate the amount of used water a family generates in one day and use a model of home plumbing to find o... ...moreStudents are introduced to the concepts of graywater and water reuse within households. They calculate the amount of used water a family generates in one day and use a model of home plumbing to find out how much graywater is produced in homes every day. They graph their results and discuss energy efficiency implications. Students are then challenged to find ways to reduce water use within the home. ...less |
Activity |
2013-06-07 |
Subject Areas: 0 Curricular Units: 0 Lessons: 1 Details |
Deformation: Nanocomposite Compression
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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 ... ...moreStudents 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 nanocomposites, including mini marshmallows, Play-Doh®, bread and foam. They measure the length and width of their nanocomposite objects before and after compression to determine the change in length and width as a function of motor rotation. ...less |
Activity |
2013-06-06 |
Subject Areas: 3 Curricular Units: 0 Lessons: 0 Details |
Heat Transfer: No Magic About It
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Heat transfer is an important concept that is a part of everyday life yet often misunderstood by students. In this lesson, students learn the scientific concepts of temperature, heat, and the transfer... ...moreHeat transfer is an important concept that is a part of everyday life yet often misunderstood by students. In this lesson, students learn the scientific concepts of temperature, heat, and the transfer of heat through conduction, convection and radiation. These scientific concepts are illustrated by comparison to magical spells used in the Harry Potter stories. ...less |
Lesson |
2013-05-31 |
Subject Areas: 2 Curricular Units: 0 Activities: 1 Details |
What Works Best in a Radiator?
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Students learn the importance of heat transfer and heat conductance. Using hot plates, student groups measure the temperature change of a liquid over a set time period and use the gathered data to cal... ...moreStudents learn the importance of heat transfer and heat conductance. Using hot plates, student groups measure the temperature change of a liquid over a set time period and use the gathered data to calculate the heat transfer that occurs. Then, as if they were engineers, students pool their results to discuss and determine the best fluid to use in a car radiator. ...less |
Activity |
2013-05-31 |
Subject Areas: 0 Curricular Units: 0 Lessons: 1 Details |
Measuring Light Pollution
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Students are introduced to the concept of light pollution by investigating the nature, sources and levels of light in their classroom environment. They learn about the adverse effects of artificial li... ...moreStudents are introduced to the concept of light pollution by investigating the nature, sources and levels of light in their classroom environment. They learn about the adverse effects of artificial light and the resulting consequences on humans, animals and plants: sky glow, direct glare, light trespass, animal disorientation and energy waste. Student teams build light meters using light sensors mounted to LEGO® MINDSTORMS® NXT intelligent bricks and then record and graph the light intensity emitted in various classroom lighting situations. They are introduced to the engineering concepts of sensors, lux or light meter, and lumen and lux (lx) illuminance units. Through this activity, students also learn how to better use light and save energy as well as some of the technologies designed by engineers to reduce light pollution and energy waste. ...less |
Activity |
2013-05-29 |
Subject Areas: 1 Curricular Units: 0 Lessons: 0 Details |
Hidden in Plain Sight
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Steganography is the science and art of hiding messages in plain sight so only the sender and intended recipient know the existence of a message. Steganography can be characterized as security through... ...moreSteganography is the science and art of hiding messages in plain sight so only the sender and intended recipient know the existence of a message. Steganography can be characterized as security through obscurity. Through this lesson, students experience a portion of the engineering design process as they research steganography and steganographic methods; identify problems, criteria and constraints; brainstorm possible solutions; and generate ideas. These are the critical first steps in the engineering design process, often overlooked by students who want to get to the "doing" phases—designing, building and testing. In computer science, a thorough design phase makes program implementation much easier and more effective. Students obtain practice with a portion of the design process that may be less exciting, but is just as important as the other steps in the process. ...less |
Lesson |
2013-05-29 |
Subject Areas: 1 Curricular Units: 0 Activities: 1 Details |
An Implementation of Steganography
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Students apply the design process to the problem of hiding a message in a digital image using steganographic methods, a PictureEdit Java class, and API (provided as an attachment). They identify the p... ...moreStudents apply the design process to the problem of hiding a message in a digital image using steganographic methods, a PictureEdit Java class, and API (provided as an attachment). They identify the problems and limitations associated with this task, brainstorm solutions, select a solution, and implement it. Once their messages are hidden, classmates attempt to decipher them. Based on the outcome of the testing phase, students refine and improve their solutions. ...less |
Activity |
2013-05-29 |
Subject Areas: 0 Curricular Units: 0 Lessons: 1 Details |
Using JUnit
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Students focus on the testing phase of the design process by considering how they have tested computer programs in the past and learning about a new method called JUnit to test programs in the future.... ...moreStudents focus on the testing phase of the design process by considering how they have tested computer programs in the past and learning about a new method called JUnit to test programs in the future. JUnit is a testing method that is included with NetBeans (Java) installs or can be downloaded from the web and included in the Java build. Students design tests using JUnit and implement those tests. ...less |
Lesson |
2013-05-27 |
Subject Areas: 1 Curricular Units: 0 Activities: 1 Details |