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.

There would be a lab about building something. Either a bridge, or possibly something using the CAD software. 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.

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

To Do

• Software could be clever enough and cheap enough that someone may have built a unit around it already. Try and find something related to this.