Updating search results...

Search Resources

188 Results

View
Selected filters:
  • NGSS.MS.ETS1.1 - Define the criteria and constraints of a design problem with sufficien...
  • NGSS.MS.ETS1.1 - Define the criteria and constraints of a design problem with sufficien...
Cleaning the Floor Using a Robot: An Introduction to Random Numbers
Read the Fine Print
Educational Use
Rating
0.0 stars

Posed with a paradigmatic engineering problem, students consider and explore mathematical algorithms and/or geometric concepts to devise possible solutions. The problem: How should a robotic vacuum move in order to best clean a floor of unknown shape and dimensions? They grapple with what could be a complex problem by brainstorming ideas, presenting the best idea for a solution and analyzing all presented solutions, and then are introduced to an elegant solution. Rather than elaborately calculating the most efficient route and keeping track of which tiles the robot has visited, a random number generator determines which direction the robot will take when it hits a barrier. Students are able to visually confirm how an unfamiliar programming concept (a random number generator) can make for a simple and efficient program that causes an NXT robot (that is suitably equipped) to clean a bare floor. Then students think of other uses for random numbers.

Subject:
Applied Science
Engineering
Material Type:
Activity/Lab
Provider:
TeachEngineering
Provider Set:
TeachEngineering
Author:
Lester Greenman
Raymond Le Grand
Date Added:
10/14/2015
Come On Over Rover
Read the Fine Print
Educational Use
Rating
0.0 stars

Have you ever wondered why it takes such a long period of time for NASA to build space exploration equipment? What is involved in manufacturing and building a rover for the Red Planet? During this lesson, students will discover the journey that a Mars rover embarks upon after being designed by engineers and before being prepared for launch. Students will investigate the fabrication techniques, tolerance concepts, assembly and field-testing associated with a Mars exploratory rover.

Subject:
Applied Science
Astronomy
Engineering
Physical Science
Material Type:
Activity/Lab
Lesson Plan
Provider:
TeachEngineering
Provider Set:
TeachEngineering
Author:
Chris Yakacki
Daria Kotys-Schwartz
Geoffrey Hill
Janet Yowell
Malinda Schaefer Zarske
Date Added:
09/18/2014
Construct It!
Read the Fine Print
Educational Use
Rating
0.0 stars

Students use simple household materials, such as PVC piping and compact mirrors, to construct models of laser-based security systems. The protected object (a "mummified troll" or another treasure of your choosing) is placed "on display" in the center of the modeled room and protected by a laser system that utilizes a laser beam reflected off mirrors to trigger a light trip sensor with alarm.

Subject:
Applied Science
Engineering
Material Type:
Activity/Lab
Provider:
TeachEngineering
Provider Set:
TeachEngineering
Author:
Meghan Murphy
Date Added:
09/18/2014
Copycat Engineers
Read the Fine Print
Educational Use
Rating
0.0 stars

This lesson introduces students to the idea of biomimicry or looking to nature for engineering ideas. Biomimicry involves solving human problems by mimicking natural solutions, and it works well because the solutions exist naturally. There are numerous examples of useful applications of biomimicry, and in this lesson we look at a few fun examples.

Subject:
Applied Science
Engineering
Material Type:
Activity/Lab
Lesson Plan
Provider:
TeachEngineering
Provider Set:
TeachEngineering
Author:
Glen Sirakavit
Janet Yowell
Karen King
Megan Podlogar
Date Added:
09/18/2014
Curing Cancer
Read the Fine Print
Educational Use
Rating
0.0 stars

Students learn about biomedical engineering while designing, building and testing prototype surgical tools to treat cancer. Students also learn that if cancer cells are not removed quickly enough during testing, a cancerous tumor may grow exponentially and become more challenging to eliminate. Students practice iterative design as they improve their surgical tools during the activity.

Subject:
Life Science
Material Type:
Activity/Lab
Provider:
TeachEngineering
Provider Set:
TeachEngineering
Author:
Chelsea Heveran
Date Added:
02/17/2017
Design, Build and Test Your Own Landfill
Read the Fine Print
Educational Use
Rating
0.0 stars

Students design and build model landfills using materials similar to those used by engineers for full-scale landfills. Their completed small-size landfills are "rained" on and subjected to other erosion processes. The goal is to create landfills that hold the most garbage, minimize the cost to build and keep trash and contaminated water inside the landfill to prevent it from causing environmental damage. Teams create designs within given budgets, test the landfills' performance, and graph and compare designs for capacity, cost and performance.

Subject:
Applied Science
Engineering
Environmental Science
Material Type:
Activity/Lab
Provider:
TeachEngineering
Provider Set:
TeachEngineering
Author:
Denise W. Carlson
Jean Parks
Date Added:
09/18/2014
Design Inspired by Nature
Read the Fine Print
Educational Use
Rating
0.0 stars

Students discover how engineers can use biomimicry to enhance their designs. They learn how careful observation of nature becoming a nature detective, so to speak can lead to new innovations and products. In this activity, students reverse engineer a flower to glean design ideas for new products.

Subject:
Applied Science
Engineering
Material Type:
Activity/Lab
Provider:
TeachEngineering
Provider Set:
TeachEngineering
Author:
Janet Yowell
Lauren Cooper
Malinda Zarske
Date Added:
09/18/2014
Design Thinking Crash Course (3rd - 12th Grade) Adaptable Lesson Plan Outline
Conditional Remix & Share Permitted
CC BY-SA
Rating
0.0 stars

This is a highly adaptable outline for how design thinking could be introduced to your learners over a multi-day project. This plan works best if students are divided up into groups of 3-4 for all work except the introduction to each concept at the beginning of class. Learners should stay in the same group for the whole class.

Includes pre-work links, general instructions to guide planning for each day, design thinking student handouts, and multi-grade NGSS standards linked to design thinking.

Subject:
Applied Science
Engineering
Material Type:
Lesson Plan
Teaching/Learning Strategy
Author:
Columbia Gorge STEM Hub
Date Added:
08/13/2020
Design a Carrying Device for People Using Crutches
Read the Fine Print
Educational Use
Rating
0.0 stars

Students are given a biomedical engineering challenge, which they solve while following the steps of the engineering design process. In a design lab environment, student groups design, create and test prototype devices that help people using crutches carry things, such as books and school supplies. The assistive devices must meet a list of constraints, including a device weight limit and minimum load capacity. Students use various hand and power tools to fabricate the devices. They test the practicality of their designs by loading them with objects and then using the modified crutches in the school hallways and classrooms.

Subject:
Applied Science
Engineering
Health, Medicine and Nursing
Material Type:
Activity/Lab
Provider:
TeachEngineering
Provider Set:
TeachEngineering
Author:
Kristen Billiar
Terri Camesano
Thomas Oliva
Date Added:
09/18/2014
Design a Flying Machine
Read the Fine Print
Educational Use
Rating
0.0 stars

The purpose of this activity is for the students to draw a design for their own flying machine. They will apply their knowledge of aircraft design and the forces acting on them. The students will start with a brainstorming activity where they come up with creative uses for every day objects. They will then use their creativity and knowledge of airplanes to design their own flying machine.

Subject:
Applied Science
Architecture and Design
Engineering
Material Type:
Activity/Lab
Provider:
TeachEngineering
Provider Set:
TeachEngineering
Author:
Alex Conner
Geoffrey Hill
Janet Yowell
Malinda Schaefer Zarske
Tom Rutkowski
Date Added:
10/14/2015
Design a Mars Rover_Explore on Your Own
Conditional Remix & Share Permitted
CC BY-NC
Rating
0.0 stars

In this Explore on Your Own activity, students will design a rover to explore the surface of Mars and determine if there are any signs of past life.

Subject:
Applied Science
Engineering
Physical Science
Material Type:
Activity/Lab
Provider:
National Air and Space Museum
Author:
National Air and Space Museum
Date Added:
09/06/2022
Design an Egyptian Playground
Read the Fine Print
Educational Use
Rating
0.0 stars

Student teams use their knowledge about ancient Egypt to design playgrounds for Egyptian children. This involves brainstorming ideas on paper, building models with LEGO® bricks or other materials, and explaining their ideas to the class in five-minute presentations.

Subject:
Applied Science
Architecture and Design
Engineering
Material Type:
Activity/Lab
Provider:
TeachEngineering
Provider Set:
TeachEngineering
Author:
Anthony Trinh
Bryan Licciadri
Heather Blackwell
Date Added:
09/18/2014
Design and Build a Rube Goldberg
Read the Fine Print
Educational Use
Rating
0.0 stars

In this two-part activity, students design and build Rube Goldberg machines. This open-ended challenge employs the engineering design process and may have a pre-determined purpose, such as rolling a marble into a cup from a distance, or let students decide the purposes.

Subject:
Applied Science
Engineering
Material Type:
Activity/Lab
Provider:
TeachEngineering
Provider Set:
TeachEngineering
Author:
Janet Yowell
Michael J. Bendewald
Date Added:
10/14/2015
Designing Bridges
Read the Fine Print
Educational Use
Rating
0.0 stars

Students learn about the types of possible loads, how to calculate ultimate load combinations, and investigate the different sizes for the beams (girders) and columns (piers) of simple bridge design. Students learn the steps that engineers use to design bridges: understanding the problem, determining the potential bridge loads, calculating the highest possible load, and calculating the amount of material needed to resist the loads.

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
Designing Medical Devices for the Ear
Read the Fine Print
Educational Use
Rating
0.0 stars

Students are introduced to engineering, specifically to biomedical engineering and the engineering design process, through a short lecture and an associated hands-on activity in which they design their own medical devices for retrieving foreign bodies from the ear canal. Through the lesson, they learn the basics of ear anatomy and how ear infections occur and are treated. Besides antibiotic treatment, the most common treatment for chronic ear infections is the insertion of ear tubes to drain fluid from the middle ear space to relieve pressure on the ear drum. Medical devices for this procedure, a very common children's surgery, are limited, sometimes resulting in unnecessary complications from a simple procedure. Thus, biomedical engineers must think creatively to develop new solutions (that is, new and improved medical devices/instruments) for inserting ear tubes into the ear drum. The class learns the engineering design process from this ear tube example of a medical device design problem. In the associated activity, students explore biomedical engineering on their own by designing prototype medical devices to solve another ear problem commonly experienced by children: the lodging of a foreign body (such as a pebble, bead or popcorn kernel) in the ear canal. The activity concludes by teams sharing and verbally analyzing their devices.

Subject:
Applied Science
Engineering
Health, Medicine and Nursing
Material Type:
Lesson Plan
Provider:
TeachEngineering
Provider Set:
TeachEngineering
Author:
Derek Harbin
Krista Warner
Leyf Starling
Shayn Peirce-Cottler
Date Added:
09/18/2014
Designing a Medical Device to Extract Foreign Bodies from the Ear
Read the Fine Print
Educational Use
Rating
0.0 stars

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.

Subject:
Applied Science
Engineering
Material Type:
Activity/Lab
Provider:
TeachEngineering
Provider Set:
TeachEngineering
Author:
Derek Harbin
Krista Warner
Leyf Starling
Shayn Peirce-Cottler
Date Added:
09/18/2014
Do as the Romans: Construct an Aqueduct!
Read the Fine Print
Educational Use
Rating
0.0 stars

Students work with specified materials to create aqueduct components that can transport two liters of water across a short distance in their classroom. The design challenge is to create an aqueduct that can supply Aqueductis, a (hypothetical) Roman city, with clean water for private homes, public baths and fountains as well as crop irrigation.

Subject:
Applied Science
Engineering
Hydrology
Physical Science
Material Type:
Activity/Lab
Provider:
TeachEngineering
Provider Set:
TeachEngineering
Date Added:
09/18/2014
Does Media Matter? Infiltration Rates and Storage Capacities
Read the Fine Print
Educational Use
Rating
0.0 stars

Students gain a basic understanding of the properties of media soil, sand, compost, gravel and how these materials affect the movement of water (infiltration/percolation) into and below the surface of the ground. They learn about permeability, porosity, particle size, surface area, capillary action, storage capacity and field capacity, and how the characteristics of the materials that compose the media layer ultimately affect the recharging of groundwater tables. They test each type of material, determining storage capacity, field capacity and infiltration rates, seeing the effect of media size on infiltration rate and storage. Then teams apply the testing results to the design their own material mixes that best meet the design requirements. To conclude, they talk about how engineers apply what students learned in the activity about the infiltration rates of different soil materials to the design of stormwater management systems.

Subject:
Applied Science
Engineering
Hydrology
Physical Science
Material Type:
Activity/Lab
Provider:
TeachEngineering
Provider Set:
TeachEngineering
Author:
Brigith Soto
Jennifer Butler
Krysta Porteus
Maya Trotz
Ryan Locicero
William Zeman
Date Added:
09/18/2014