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Natural Frequency and Buildings
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Educational Use
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Students learn about frequency and period, particularly natural frequency using springs. They learn that the natural frequency of a system depends on two things: the stiffness and mass of the system. Students see how the natural frequency of a structure plays a big role in the building surviving an earthquake or high winds.

Subject:
Applied Science
Education
Engineering
Geoscience
Life Science
Physical Science
Physics
Material Type:
Activity/Lab
Provider:
TeachEngineering
Provider Set:
TeachEngineering
Author:
Jake Moravec
Date Added:
09/18/2014
Operation Build a Bridge and Get Over It
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Educational Use
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Students act as structural engineers and learn about forces and load distributions as they follow the steps of the engineering design process to design and build small-scale bridges using wooden tongue depressors and glue. Teams brainstorm ideas that meet the size and material design constraints and create prototype bridges of the most promising solutions. They test their bridges to see how much weight they can hold until they break and then determine which have the highest strength-to-weight ratios. They examine the prototype failures to identify future improvements. This activity is part of a unit in which multiple activities are brought together for an all-day school/multi-school concluding “engineering field day” competition.

Subject:
Applied Science
Engineering
Material Type:
Activity/Lab
Provider:
TeachEngineering
Provider Set:
Activities
Author:
Nadia Richards
Date Added:
01/01/2015
Shallow & Deep Foundations
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Educational Use
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Students investigate the critical nature of foundations as they learn differences between shallow and deep foundations, including the concepts of bearing pressure and settlement. Using models representing a shallow foundation and a deep pile foundation, they test, see and feel the effects in a cardboard box test bed composed of layers of pebbles, soil and sand. They also make bearing pressure calculations and recommendations for which type of foundations to use in various engineering scenarios.

Subject:
Education
Material Type:
Activity/Lab
Provider:
TeachEngineering
Provider Set:
TeachEngineering
Author:
Denali Lander
Denise W. Carlson
Joe Friedrichsen
Jonathan S. Goode
Malinda Schaefer Zarske
Natalie Mach
Date Added:
10/14/2015
Show Me the Money
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Educational Use
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Students learn about the major factors that comprise the design and construction cost of a modern bridge. Before a bridge design is completed, engineers provide overall cost estimates for construction of the bridge. Students learn about the components that go into estimating the total cost, including expenses for site investigation, design, materials, equipment, labor and construction oversight, as well as the trade-off between a design and its cost.

Subject:
Applied Science
Architecture and Design
Engineering
Material Type:
Activity/Lab
Lesson Plan
Provider:
TeachEngineering
Provider Set:
TeachEngineering
Author:
Christopher Valenti
Denali Lander
Denise W. Carlson
Joe Friedrichsen
Jonathan S. Goode
Malinda Schaefer Zarske
Natalie Mach
Date Added:
09/18/2014
Spaghetti Bridge
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Educational Use
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Civil engineers design structures such as buildings, dams, highways and bridges. Student teams explore the field of engineering by making bridges using spaghetti as their primary building material. Then they test their bridges to see how much weight they can carry before breaking.

Subject:
Applied Science
Engineering
Material Type:
Activity/Lab
Provider:
TeachEngineering
Provider Set:
TeachEngineering
Date Added:
09/18/2014
Straw Bridges
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Educational Use
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Working as engineering teams, students design and create model beam bridges using plastic drinking straws and tape as their construction materials. Their goal is to build the strongest bridge with a truss pattern of their own design, while meeting the design criteria and constraints. They experiment with different geometric shapes and determine how shapes affect the strength of materials. Let the competition begin!

Subject:
Applied Science
Architecture and Design
Engineering
Material Type:
Activity/Lab
Provider:
TeachEngineering
Provider Set:
TeachEngineering
Author:
Chris Valenti
Denali Lander
Denise W. Carlson
Joe Friedrichsen
Jonathan S. Goode
Malinda Schaefer Zarske
Natalie Mach
Date Added:
10/14/2015
Strength of Materials
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Educational Use
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Students learn about the variety of materials used by engineers in the design and construction of modern bridges. They also find out about the material properties important to bridge construction and consider the advantages and disadvantages of steel and concrete as common bridge-building materials to handle compressive and tensile forces.

Subject:
Applied Science
Architecture and Design
Engineering
Material Type:
Activity/Lab
Lesson Plan
Provider:
TeachEngineering
Provider Set:
TeachEngineering
Author:
Christopher Valenti
Denali Lander
Denise W. Carlson
Joe Friedrichsen
Jonathan S. Goode
Malinda Schaefer Zarske
Natalie Mach
Date Added:
09/18/2014
Triangles: Designing a Straw Bridge
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Educational Use
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In this video segment adapted from ZOOM, the cast tries to design and build a bridge made out of drinking straws that will support the weight of 200 pennies.

Subject:
Applied Science
Chemistry
Engineering
Physical Science
Physics
Technology
Material Type:
Activity/Lab
Provider:
PBS LearningMedia
Provider Set:
PBS Learning Media: Multimedia Resources for the Classroom and Professional Development
Author:
National Science Foundation
WGBH Educational Foundation
Date Added:
01/22/2004
Triangles Everywhere: Sum of Angles in Polygons
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Educational Use
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Students learn about regular polygons and the common characteristics of regular polygons. They relate their mathematical knowledge of these shapes to the presence of these shapes in the human-made structures around us, especially trusses. Through a guided worksheet and teamwork, students explore the idea of dividing regular polygons into triangles, calculating the sums of angles in polygons using triangles, and identifying angles in shapes using protractors. They derive equations 1) for the sum of interior angles in a regular polygon, and 2) to find the measure of each angle in a regular n-gon. This activity extends students’ knowledge to engineering design and truss construction. This activity is the middle step in a series on polygons and trusses, and prepares students for the Polygon and Popsicle Trusses associated activity.

Subject:
Geometry
Mathematics
Material Type:
Activity/Lab
Provider:
TeachEngineering
Author:
Andi Vicksman
Maia Vadeen
Malinda Zarske
Nathan Coyle
Russell Anderson
Ryan Sullivan
Sabina Schill
Date Added:
02/07/2017
Triangles & Trusses
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Educational Use
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Students learn about the fundamental strength of different shapes, illustrating why structural engineers continue to use the triangle as the structural shape of choice. Examples from everyday life are introduced to show how this shape is consistently used for structural strength. Along with its associated activity, this lesson empowers students to explore the strength of trusses made with different triangular elements to evaluate the various structural properties.

Subject:
Applied Science
Education
Engineering
Mathematics
Material Type:
Lesson Plan
Provider:
TeachEngineering
Provider Set:
TeachEngineering
Author:
Amanda Guiliani
Darcie Chinnis
Malinda Schaefer Zarske
Scott Duckworth
Date Added:
09/18/2014
Truss Destruction
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Educational Use
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Students work within constraints to construct model trusses and then test them to failure as a way to evaluate the relative strength of different truss configurations and construction styles. Each student group uses Popsicle sticks and hot glue to build a different truss configuration from a provided diagram of truss styles. Within each group, each student builds two exact copies of the team's truss configuration using his/her own construction method, one of which is tested under shear conditions and the other tested under compression conditions. Results are compiled and reviewed as a class to analyze the strength of different types of shapes and construction methods under the two types of loads. Students make and review predictions, and normalize strengths. Teams give brief presentations to recap their decisions, results and analysis.

Subject:
Applied Science
Architecture and Design
Engineering
Material Type:
Activity/Lab
Provider:
TeachEngineering
Provider Set:
TeachEngineering
Author:
Amanda Guiliani
Darcie Chinnis
Malinda Schaefer Zarske
Scott Duckworth
Date Added:
09/18/2014