Coming Soon to ACS
Engineering design field Day
​
Objectives of the Engineering Design Initiative at ACS:
Students who are actively engaged are better learners and build a stronger foundational knowledge of that subject. Problem-based learning has proven to be an exceptional method to actively involve students in their education and develop the types of future innovators we need to compete in this ever-growing technical world. Participating in STEM education and Engineering Design is one of the most important ways that schools can provide this type of education, while providing students with the ability to create, collaborate, communicate, and think critically, which are the pillars of 21st Century learning.
​
An engineering field day combines hands-on engineering projects into a school-wide competition. The activities are a mix of design and problem-solving projects inspired by real-world engineering challenges and cover a range of disciplines such as aerospace, mechanical and civil engineering. In each activity, students are presented with a problem to creatively solve within given material and time constraints. The culminating competition serves as a testing ground to evaluate whether their designs meet the criteria. Additionally, the project materials are fixed, so students must use their creativity to find optimal ways to use the materials. This competitive structure helps prepare students for a competitive world, especially in the field of engineering. It also builds their skills in working in groups, promoting virtues such as cooperation, flexibility, and communicating respectfully. The diverse nature of these projects open students minds to a multitude of various perspectives and points of view, all skills that will serve them in their future tremendously.
​
​
Timeline
Year 1 (2021):
September-December- throughout this time, teachers will learn the fundamentals of engineering, the engineering design process, and how to implement engineering design challenges into their grade-level curriculum through professional development opportunities and staff meetings with guidance from teachers knowledgeable in engineering and the Principal.
​
January-May- each grade level teacher will teach their students the structure of the engineering design process and guide students through one design challenge per month related to the curriculum they are studying in science or other discipline. Teachers will determine how each challenge will be assessed and implemented, but with the premise that it should be individual student project designs.
Year 2 (2022):
Fall/Winter- teachers will reinforce classroom-based engineering challenges throughout the curriculum.
​
March- each grade level will present a proposed design challenge for the upcoming school-wide Engineering Design Field Day to a panel of teachers, principal and/or adult judges.
Spring School-Wide Engineering Design Field Day- Teachers, principal, parents and volunteers, will assist, evaluate and award winners from various grade levels in pre-determined engineering competitions in a single-day Engineering Design Field Day. Grades Pre-K through 4th will be judged separately from Grades 5-8. In addition, a grade-level math test competition will be held to interested students with awards to the winner in each grade level K-8.
Sources for classrooms and school-wide competition:
https://www.teachengineering.org/standards/ngss
https://www.teachengineering.org/curricularunits/view/ucd_fieldday_unit
Ideas for the engineering design challenges for the school-wide engineering field day event retrieved from:
Teaching Engineering. Accessed August 2, 2019. https://www.teachengineering.org/curricularunits/view/ucd_fieldday_unit
**These activities can be modified or replaced should grade-level teachers suggest** (next page)
Design and Fly A Kite
Students learn how to use wind energy to combat gravity and create lift by creating their own tetrahedral kites capable of flying. They explore different tetrahedron kite designs, learning that the geometry of the tetrahedron shape lends itself well to kites and wings because of its advantageous strength-to-weight ratio. Then they design their own kites using drinking straws, string, lightweight paper/plastic and glue/tape. Student teams experience the full engineering design cycle as if they are aeronautical engineers—they determine the project constraints, research the problem, brainstorm ideas, select a promising design and build a prototype; then they test and redesign to achieve a successful flying kite. Pre/post quizzes and a worksheet are provided.
Engineering Derby: Tool Ingenuity
Student teams are challenged to navigate a table tennis ball through a timed obstacle course using only the provided unconventional “tools.” Teams act as engineers by working through the steps of the engineering design process to complete the overall task with each group member responsible to accomplish one of the obstacle course challenges. Inspired by the engineers who helped the Apollo 13 astronauts through critical problems in space, students must be innovative with the provided supplies to use them as tools to move the ball through the obstacles as swiftly as possible. Groups are encouraged to communicate with each other to share vital information. The course and tool choices are easily customizable for varied age groups and/or difficulty levels. Pre/post assessment handouts, competition rules and judging rubric are provided.
Race to the Top: Modeling Skyscrapers
Working individually or in pairs, students compete to design, create, test and redesign free-standing, weight-bearing towers using Kapla® wooden blocks. The challenge is to build the tallest tower while meeting the design criteria and minimizing the amount of material used—all within a time limit. Students experiment with different geometric shapes used in structural designs and determine how design choices affect the height and strength of structures, becoming comfortable with the concepts of structural members and modeling. 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.
Straw Towers to the Moon
Students learn about civil engineers and work through each step of the engineering design process in two mini-activities that prepare them for a culminating challenge to design and build the tallest straw tower possible, given limited time and resources. First they examine the profiles of the tallest 20 towers in the world. Then in the first mini-activity (one-straw tall tower), student pairs each design a way to keep one straw upright with the least amount of tape and fewest additional straws. In the second mini-activity (no "fishing pole"), the pairs determine the most number of straws possible to construct a vertical straw tower before it bends at 45 degrees—resembling a fishing pole shape. Students learn that the taller a structure, the more tendency it has to topple over. In the culminating challenge (tallest straw tower), student pairs apply what they have learned and follow the steps of the engineering design process to create the tallest possible model tower within time, material and building constraints, mirroring the real-world engineering experience of designing solutions within constraints. Three worksheets are provided, for each of two levels, grades K-2 and grades 3-5. The activity scales up to school-wide, district or regional competition scale.