Cooler Design Challenge
Students learn and apply concepts in thermodynamics and energy—mainly convection, conduction, and radiation— to solve a challenge. This is accomplished by splitting students into teams and having them follow the engineering design process to design and build a small insulated box, with the goal of keeping an ice cube and a Popsicle from melting. Students are given a short traditional lecture to help familiarize them with the basic rules of thermodynamics and an introduction to materials science while they continue to monitor the ice within their team’s box.
Students create a cooler using recycled materials and shoeboxes. Their challenge: to keep ice and popsicles from melting.Copyright 2018 Laurie Salander, North Dakota State University Fargo
Students follow the engineering design process while building and designing their team’s cooler. This allows students to play the role of engineers who are using design-thinking to approach a problem to help improve insulating technology. Engineering applications that use thermal dynamics range from insulating the walls of a house to keeping hot chocolate warm inside a mug. Just like engineers, students have time to iterate and retest their designs more than once.
After this activity, students should be able to:
- Explain the background concepts to materials and thermodynamics.
- Describe the concepts of convection, conduction, and radiation in everyday life.
- Recognize and list common insulators and conductors.
- Explain the steps in the engineering design process.
- Explain why engineers re-design and re-test their designs many times.