CS382:Unit-engineering

Alternately, we could do something with engineering. Develop structual models, and see what sort of crazy structures you could make that would stand on their own. There's already some rudimentary stuff to do this with, such as Bridgebuilder, but if we could possibly do something more complicated, it might be interesting.

http://www.bridgebuilder-game.com/ - Bridgebuilder.

http://www.freebyte.com/cad/dynamic.htm - Some links to CAD Software. I haven't had time to try any of it out yet, but the descriptions look promising.

The way I see the whole unit starting out is with a brief lecture / discussion about the basic forces and/or challenges in Engineering. You have a certain structure you want to build, but you need to account for the materials you'll use, the possible stresses on the structure, etc.

More specifically, The unit could easily be started out by a lecture on / explanation of the forces acting on a bridge. Give a brief overview of the two types of forces acting on any bridge, stretching and compression, and exactly what they do to a bridge. A second lecture could focus on the different types of bridges, how and where the different forces that effect a bridge effect each of them, and the different techniques that different types of bridges use to mitigate the forces in order to stay stable.

There would be a lab about building something. Either a bridge, or possibly something using the bridge builder software. I managed to get through all the levels in less than 2 hours. Functionality would be the most important aspect of what's build, but there could possibly be extra credit for efficiency? For looks? Something along those lines.

As much as I would like to expand the focus of this unit so it was more about general engineering, that may be too broad of a topic, and currently the software we have to model bridges is looking promising.

Comments

Pros

Could turn in a saved file if they did it
Not too difficult to teach about stress and strain

Cons

Software is appealing, but much more difficult to teach about stress on a bridge
- Could we teach enough that it isn't just guesswork on their part? (But on the other hand, they might be able to guess their way to figuring out that triangles are strong)

Comments

Engineering has a large range of complexity - going from building a house to something more complicated like a suspension bridge
The real life aspect could be either making some toy model or actually go outside and build a bridge.
We could possibly do something with cornstarch + water and make something that they could walk across.
- Balsa wood??
Might be interesting to start with the physical model and try it for a bit, then show how to model with the software (or vice versa)
- Could be too easy with the physical model (if we use something like KNEX)