Lesson 3: Design Challenge Details and Individual Design Initiation
Submitted by rmfield on Tue, 09/16/2008 - 9:47pm.
| Unit: Bridges | Textbook references: | | Learning objectives: Students will begin to formulate creative ideas for addressing the design challenge. | Key Questions, Concepts, or Themes: If you were designing a bridge, what features and characteristics would it have? | | Stage 1: Introduce the constraints of the design challenge: - The bridge must be able to span a gap of 30 cm wide and 10 cm high.
- The bridge should have a flat surface at least 5 cm wide.
- The bridge must be built entirely from materials supplied by the engineering shop.
- The design should utilize the fewest resources possible while supporting as much weight as possible.
Walk through the engineering design process and describe how each step will be implemented by the students: - Identify the need of the problem: A safe route for travel is needed over a large river.
- Research the need of the problem: We have done this over the past two days.
- Develop possible solutions: That will be done today. Each student will come up with his/her own idea for designing the bridge.
- Select the best idea for the solution: Next class, each student will give a 5 minute presentation to his/her group to convince the group that their design is the best. From this, the group can choose the best design or creat a composite of the best ideas from each design.
- Construct a prototype: For this project, the prototype will be designed using the West Point Bridge Designer software, which will allow students to test their ideas in a simulation before implementing them. (http://bridgecontest.usma.edu/download.htm)
- Test and Evaluate the Solution: The simulator will provide the feedback to the students on their design.
- Communicate the Solutions: Is the design you've created a good one? What could you change to make it better?
- Re-design: If necessary, the students will come up with an improved design and model it in the West Point Bridge Design software. Otherwise, they will begin to construct their actual competition bridges.
| | Stage 2: Students will begin sketches of their bridge designs for presentation to their group during the next class period. The designs should include annotations showing where they think the greatest forces will be applied to the bridge and where they think the weakest point is. | | Stage 3: | | Homework: | Assessments: (attach/link copies) __ Group assessment X Observation of process/student work __ Self-assessment by student __ Teacher generated assignment __ Written project __ Test/Quiz __ Other: ____________________________________ |
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