Students are begining to move outside of the simple gear trains and rotary to rotary transitions and moving into more complex mechanisms. We will continue this through next week. Students are working on identifying the effects various mechanisms have on the relationship between the INPUT of a mechanical system and the OUTPUT as it relates to the....
Students gave a quick 1 minute presentation over what they constructed, how it works and what they would do if they had more time to finish. I extended our time on this activity because the students did WAY better than expected! They have never worked with these materials and they were all trying out the various options.
Some may not look like much, but it served the purpose of becoming familiar with the hardware and how to use some of the more 'unique' pieces. What a great end to the week! We decided to just dive right in and build 'something'. Students were introduced to their new groups for this design round and then were encouraged to explore the assorted hardware by constructing something, anything. We used this as an opportunity to learn how to use some of the hardware and how to achieve some basic objectives (based on what the group was trying to accomplish).
We are now transitioning to the next section of our semester course, PLTW AUTOMATION and ROBOTICS (AR). We have spent the last few days working to organize our materials and try to become familiar with some of the various 'hardware' that the students will have to work with in their VEX Robotics kits. Click HERE to check out some info about our VEX EDR Kits Students wrapped up their final prototypes for the 3rd Design Challenge to wrap up our Design and Modeling portion of our course. Students were to design and construct a prototype based on group-generated criteria identified to address the design problem. Below are pictures of the prototypes.
Upon completion, students evaluated designs to ensure that their 'plans' attempted to solve the design problem. After careful planning, students are now set free to begin formally sketching, dimensioning and building their Therapeutic Toy Prototypes. At this point, design teams have carefully generated criteria their toy should have and ways to meet those criteria while being limited by our identified constraints (most notably our materials). Now that the students have analyzed the specifics associated with this FINAL Design Challenge, they can now begin to brainstorm ideas for ways that they can 'solve' the design problem.
They must consider the criteria they outlined early on when developing design ideas, keeping in mind that the design must be universal, as well as provide some benefit to patients with Cerebral Palsy (CP). Here are some of the design ideas/sketches associated with this stage of the design process (sorry they are upside down)!
Today, students watched a video that introduces their final design challenge of the quarter. Students will be developing a universal (accessible by all) THERAPEUTIC TOY to be used to help patients with Cerebral Palsy (CP). The toy they develop can be an innovation or an invention, with the aim of solving an identified 'problem' or filling some sort of need.
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