Student teams design their own booms (bridges) and engage in a friendly competition with other teams to test their designs. Each team strives to design a boom that is light, can hold a certain amount of weight, and is affordable to build. Teams are also assessed on how close their design estimations are to the final weight and cost of their boom "construction." This activity teaches students how to simplify the math behind the risk and estimation process that takes place at every engineering firm prior to the bidding phase when an engineering firm calculates how much money it will take to build the project and then "bids" against other competitors.

Apply decision-making strategies to various financial scenarios.

Teacher Guide Provided
3-5 hours

Engineering analysis distinguishes true engineering design from "tinkering." In this activity, students are guided through an example engineering analysis scenario for a scooter. Then they perform a similar analysis on the design solutions they brainstormed in the previous activity in this unit. At activity conclusion, students should be able to defend one most-promising possible solution to their design challenge. (Note: Conduct this activity in the context of a design project that students are working on; this activity is Step 4 in a series of six that guide students through the engineering design loop.)

The Design Process is a modern approach to the teaching of practical skills in schools, colleges and universities. It is sometimes called Product Design. In this course learners will learn how to define the Design Process and explain the framework of design. This course discusses the advantages and disadvantages of the design process and it illustrates the design process diagrammatically. It explains problem identification techniques and discusses ways of analysing products to be designed. In addition, this course discusses the importance of investigating into problems before designing and making.

Students are introduced to safety protocols by evaluating unsafe situations, sharing their ideas with their peers, developing a list of recommended safety protocols as a class, and finally, by comparing the class list to a standard list of safety rules. This activity seeks to demonstrate the importance of safety engineering and illustrate how it helps to prevent injuries and save lives. A PowerPoint® presentation, pre/post quiz and student handout are provided.

Each person in the world has a set of fingerprints unique to them! Even though every print is different, they can be categorized into one of three general types:
-loops (found in 65% of the population)
-whorls (found in 35% of the population)
-arches (found in 5% of the population)

Analyzing fingerprints can be a tricky business, especially without computers to help. After categorizing a print as a loop, whorl, or arch, look for these individual features:
-core: in a loop fingerprint, this is the center of the loop. 
-delta: in loop and whorl patterns, this is an area where ridges meet from three directions. (There is usually one delta on a loop and two or more on a whorl.
-ridge end: notice where individual ridges come to an end. 
-bifurcation: notice where a ridge divides into two ridges (like a fork in a road)
-island: notice any short ridges cut off from others. 
-crossover: notice where any ridges appear to cross over each other.

Try your hand at fingerprint analysis! Two different fingerprints have been found at a crime scene. Compare them to the fingerprints of the 4 suspects on this website.

The goal of this activity is to understand how techniques of persuasion (including background, supporting evidence, storytelling and the call to action) are used to develop an argument for or against a topic. Students develop an environmental case study for presentation and understand how a case study is used as an analysis tool.

Students use latex tubes and bicycle pumps to conduct experiments to gather data about the relationship between latex strength and air pressure. Then they use this data to extrapolate latex strength to the size of latex tubing that would be needed in modern passenger sedans to serve as hybrid vehicle accelerators, thus answering the engineering design challenge question posed in the first lesson of this unit. Students input data into Excel spreadsheets and generate best fit lines by the selection of two data points from their experimental research data. They discuss the y-intercept and slope as it pertains to the mathematical model they generated. Students use the slope of the line to interpret the data collected. Then they extrapolate with this information to predict the latex dimensions that would be required for a full-size hydraulic accumulator installed in a passenger vehicle.

Includes organizers to: interpret, examine themes, make inferences, summarize and analyze.
Grades 5 to 8.

Students build a world of their own by answering curriculum aligned questions covering thousands of skill strands. Reading, writing, rhyming and phonetics are included.

Educators get free full access. Parents can work collaboratively with their child's teacher for access or purchase home memberships.

Students investigate the life cycles of engineered products and how they impact the environment. They use a basic life cycle assessment method that assigns fictional numerical values for different steps in the life cycle. Then they use their analyses to compare the impacts of their products to other products, and suggest ways to reduce environmental impact based on their analyses.

Students analyze a cartoon of a Rube Goldberg machine and a Python programming language script to practice engineering analysis. In both cases, they study the examples to determine how the different systems operate and the function of each component. This exercise in juxtaposition enables students to see the parallels between a more traditional mechanical engineering design and computer programming. Students also gain practice in analyzing two very different systems to fully understand how they work, similar to how engineers analyze systems and determine how they function and how changes to the system might affect the system.

Working in small groups, students complete and run functioning Python codes. They begin by determining the missing commands in a sample piece of Python code that doubles all the elements of a given input and sums the resulting values. Then students modify more advanced Python code, which numerically computes the slope of a tangent line by finding the slopes of progressively closer secant lines; to this code they add explanatory comments to describe the function of each line of code. This requires students to understand the logic employed in the Python code. Finally, students make modifications to the code in order to find the slopes of tangents to a variety of functions.

This resource includes a video on the SOAPSTone Literature Analysis Strategy, as well as a PDF including the steps and descriptions of SOAPSTone and an exemplar.

We touch things every day: a coffee cup, a car door, a computer keyboard. Each time we do, it is likely that we leave behind our unique signature- in our fingerprints.

No two people have exactly the same fingerprints. Even identical twins, with identical DNA, have different fingerprints. This uniqueness allows fingerprints to be used in all sorts of ways, including for background checks, biometric security, mass disaster identification, and of course, in criminal situations.

Fingerprint analysis has been used to identify suspects and solve crimes for more than 100 years, and it remains an extremely valuable took for law enforcement. Once of the more important uses for fingerprints is to help investigators link one crime scene to another involving the same person. Fingerprint identification also helps investigators to track a criminal's record, their previous arrests and convictions, to aid in sentencing, probation, parole and pardoning decisions.

This website includes information on the following:
-Principles of Fingerprint Analysis
-When and How Fingerprint Analysis is Used
-How Fingerprints are Collected
-Fingerprint Analysis Process
-FAQs
-Common Terms
-Resources and References

Webmath is a math-help web site that generates answers to specific math questions and problems, as entered by a user, at any particular moment. The math answers are generated and displayed real-time, at the moment a web user types in their math problem and clicks "solve." In addition to the answers, Webmath also shows the student how to arrive at the answer.

Students are introduced to the technology of flexible circuits, some applications and the photolithography fabrication process. They are challenged to determine if the fabrication process results in a change in the circuit dimensions since, as circuits get smaller and smaller (nano-circuits), this could become very problematic. The lesson prepares students to conduct the associated activity in which they perform statistical analysis (using Excel® and GeoGebra) to determine if the circuit dimension sizes before and after fabrication are in fact statistically different. A PowerPoint® presentation and post-quiz are provided. This lesson and its associated activity are suitable for use during the last six weeks of the AP Statistics course; see the topics and timing note for details.

Students learn about contact stress and its applications in engineering. They are introduced to the concept of heavy loads, such as buildings, elephants, people and traffic, and learn how those heavy loads apply contact stress. Through the analysis of their own footprints, students determine their contact stress.

This video walks students through how to analyze poetry using the TPCASTT strategy.  There is a PDF of theTPCASTT steps included, as well as an exemplar.