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Activity (Hands-On)Grades 6 - 8

Designing Medical Devices to Extract Foreign Bodies from Ears

A cutaway medical illustration shows the pointed end of a pencil in a child's ear, lodged into the ear canal all the way to the ear drum. A photo shows a woman using a handheld device to look into a girl's ear.How can we remove foreign objects from the ear?

Students learn the engineering design process by following the steps, from problem identification to designing a device and evaluating its efficacy and areas for improvement. A quick story at the beginning of the activity sets up the challenge: A small child put a pebble in his ear and we don't know how to get it out! Acting as biomedical engineers, students are asked to design a device to remove it. Each student pair is provided with a model ear canal and a variety of classroom materials. A worksheet guides the design process as students create devices and attempt to extract pebbles from the ear canal.

The activity challenge is one that real-world biomedical engineers actually face. Students follow the steps of the engineering design process to design, build and test prototype medical devices. They are asked to think of what other materials could be applicable in this situation and what other principles engineers might need to consider to solve this problem. Similarly, engineers do research and review prior art before attempting to solve problems. Students also learn about engineering a bit beyond the obvious. For example, they may not have all the materials they want or a classmate may have used the last bit of glue, so they are faced with limitations. Engineers rarely have all the resources they want to solve problems. Limits on technological capabilities, funds and time require creativity and teamwork to overcome.

After this activity, students should be able to:

  • List the steps of the engineering design process.
  • Describe the work of biomedical engineers and give examples.
  • Draw at least one connection from a science class lesson to the work of engineers.

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