Engineering on the cheap...doing it with Paper!

Of all of the common materials that can be used to teach hands-on engineering concepts, probably the most flexible (no pun intended) and easily available is ordinary computer paper. One of our most successful projects is the Paper Bridge, a task that involves having the students construct a bridge out of the previously mentioned paper. This is the way I do it:

I give the students a short lesson on bridges, after which I give them a little time to come up with a bridge design. The students typically will pick a truss-type bridge, usually because the other two types (Suspension and Arch) do not lend themselves well to paper construction. The key here, depending on the level of student, is to introduce the idea of criteria and constraints. If I was teaching this to 3rd graders, I may not limit their materials, I may only tell them the length of the span they have to cross. When I teach this to 10th and 11th graders, I will typically impose very tight constraints and criteria. In class right now, for instance, my 10th graders are working on a 60cm bridge, using only 10 sheets of paper and masking tape. I've done it with seniors where I've given them 5 sheets of paper, 25cm of tape, and had them build bridges that were 60cm in span as well as 10cm x 10cm in height and width. That takes some thinking.

I also have the students do a presentation about their bridges, as well as a similar bridge somewhere in the world. Again, based on the level of your students you could stop there, or go as far as analyzing the economic impacts to a city if a particular bridge was not there. This could be an in-class discussion, or homework, etc.

The possibilities are almost limitless. We have paper towers, paper testing to investigate material properties, and we can even do papier-mache to look at composite materials (a papier-mache column with spaghetti reinforcements is especially impressive if you do it right.) The US Army Corps of Engineers also has a really good e-book about using manila file folders to construct bridge beams at http://bridgecontest.usma.edu/...

...Which segues me into my next point. The previous project is the no-tech version. You can make it low-tech if you have a couple of computers by using the West Point Bridge Designer software. It's free, so you don't have to worry about coming up with any funding. It is a good tool for kids check the stability of their bridges before they build them, and also where the tension and compression is (you could go into beam buckling and tension equations if you want to, but it is probably best left to high school teachers.) It also runs on just about any computer, from Win98 on up.

The high-tech option is left to those teachers which buy or already have a bridge-testing apparatus (I actually have one, but I prefer to just put the bridge between two tables and hang cupfulls of penies from it.) You can measure the force vs. deflection, and graph it and look at the flexibility of different types of bridges.

Hope you can put this to good use. I'll have some worksheets up in the near future.

TTFN

Engineering Education Book Info

As I said in the introductory post to the blog, I am getting ready to write a book. I've already started to put things together, so I'll share a little about it:

Title: How YOU can Teach Engineering with NOTHING*

*except this book and common classroom supplies

Subtitle: A guide to teaching engineering concepts in any school, any grade, anywhere!

The key to this whole project is that the book will be applicable to any grade level. I've come up with something called "The Ladder." For each engineering concept, the activities and projects are organized by ability level and depth of knowledge. Kindergarten level activities would begin at the bottom of the ladder, with 12th grade type activities at the top. Teachers could then begin at the bottom of the ladder if they wish, or anywhere on the ladder.

I would recommend beginning one grade level below where the teacher thinks the class is, and work up the ladder. The grade below activities serve as a 'refresher' for the students, as well as bringing up to speed any students that may be a little behind. The teachers can then work up the ladder as far as they are willing to take their classes. The only limiter will be some of the advanced concepts in terms of math. I fully expect, however, for a teacher to move their class at least one grade level above them on the ladder, possibly two. So a fourth grade teacher may do a few activities on the third grade rung, complete the fourth grade rung, and do few activities on the fifth and sixth grade rungs. I wouldn't expect fourth graders to get up to doing seventh grade level work, but you never know. The advancement is built in for gifted students and those who just work a little quicker. If the book gets too big, which it might, I'll break it down into single-grade workbooks as well as multi grade editions, like K-3, 4-6, 7-9 and 10-12 or something similar. I might also break it up vertically, so you might have a K-12 book about civil engineering for example.

The other key is implementation. In the present economic climate, budgets are tight. I also know that levels of support vary from region to region, or even school to school in a district. To combat this, and to make good on my sub-title, each activity will come in three flavors: No-tech (using just the book and common classroom supplies), Low-tech (using the supplies above plus free computer software, nonstandard materials, etc) and High-tech, which might need other software and one computer per two students. I want to strees that the concepts that will be learned are the same; I'm not creating haves and have nots. Just because you don't have computers in your classroom doesn't mean your students won't learn just as much as those who do.

I'm also going to try to correlate each standard with science and math standards, as well as social studies as applicable. That way principals can feel at ease that you are teaching the standards, and not just goofing off building cool projects. I know that each state has different standards, so I may put in general concept keywords and the teacher may have to do their own correlation. I'll try to make it as painless as possible. I will definitely be correlating them with the ITEA Technology Literacy Standards. Many states have already correlated these with math and science standards. I hope yours is one of them.

In the future I'll be posting sample projects, Ladders, and book chapters. Please let me know what you think. I appreciate the criticism, constructive or otherwise.

I hope I've taken away any excuses about why you can't teach engineering in your classroom and motivate more kids to enter into engineering careers. This country needs more of them. It's up to you.

TTFN