D.Think

Here's a link to the Stanford Design School ("D.School") "Bootcamp Bootleg". We'll use this document to better understand "Design Thinking": Stanford Design School's "Bootcamp Bootleg"

A Millie

We watched the Millie preview during 6th Period. What a show! Nice job to our Engineers that participated in the performance (Chase, Matt, Shana, am I missing anyone else?). Looks like you can catch the show the next two weekends:

Scratch Built

Third Period is soon finishing up the RC Prop Car Challenge (aka "The Hunger Games"). Here's a look at what the next step will be in the RC series:

TED Challenge PTII!

Now that you've picked, viewed and taken notes on a TED Video (TED Challenge Pt I), it's time to move to the second part of the activity.


You will be placed into random groups of 4 or more students. Each student in the group has a unique talk they felt was exciting and relevant to the class.

The objective of your group is to:
1) Negotiate within your team to decide which video you'll use to represent the group.
2) Once your group has agreed on a video, prepare a breif presentation for the class.
3) Be prepared to present your talk when asked to do so.

Your presentation should:
A) Play the TED video your team chose. Be sure to introduce your video. Provide a little bit of context for what the class is about to experience :)
B) Each team member will prepare a conversation starting question for the class (open-ended "how" and/or "why", not Yes/No).
C) Explain how a student could get involved in the field in question in the future.

You will be able to use the class projector to support your presentation.

Points are awarded for:
(2 pts Extra Cred) The student who's talk is chosen to represent the group earns extra credit.
(1 pt Extra Cred) All the memebers of the group who's presentation is chosen as the best of the class recieve extra credit.
(3 pts) Each student in the group earns a point for each of the above three presentation criteria (A, B, C) that are met in their talk.

Food for Thought:
-Will you argue for your video as the best to earn extra credit for yourself?
-Or will you support your team by picking a different video that will best help the group's chances?
-Or are you so sure of your video that you feel it should be chosen for your group and that it will win the class competition as well?

Watch Out Now!

A few of our Engineers from the projects class nearly took out Mrs. Edingfield!:

Sort It!

Andrew and Connor have figured out an elegant way to seperate their wood and metal marbles from their glass ones:

Whistle While You Work

Theme music for our in class "10 Minute Design-Build Challenges"!:

How to cut like an Architect

Influential Architects

In anticipation of our forthcoming "Architecture Project", please take a look at these breif videos:

Influential Architects

Play all:
Click here to watch all the videos in sequence!

TED Challenge 2012!

Go to TED.com and spend some time investigating the site.

Once you've had a chance to familiarize yourself with the webpage, answer the following questions:

1) What is the TED organization about?

2) What is the purpose of their website and how does the functionality of their site support that?

3) As Engineers and Problem Solvers, which topic areas (the choices from the "Show talks related to:" section on the sidebar) are of most interest to us? Justify your answer.

4) Based on your previous answer, what are 3 talks (videos) on the site that appear like they would be of most interest to you as an Engineer/Problem Solver? Justify your choices.

5) Each student will watch a unique video (clear your choice with me... first come, first served!). Watch the video. Embed the video in your blog post and create a bulletized outline of the key issues presented in the talk.

6) How could you get involved in the field/technology/issue you chose to hear about? What experience/skills/training/education would you need to learn to get involved with this field?


Part II of the TED activity will have you negotiate within a group to select the "best" video to represent the group. The student with the chosen video will recieve extra credit. The group will then prepare a short presentation that summarizes the talk and will present to the class. The class will choose the best presentation and that group will recieve extra credit.

Robots Ate My Job!

Click here to learn more at marketplace.org

Monski Pong!

Niki has integrated some flex sensors (resistors) with an Arduino to control a straightforward "Pong" style game. Nice!:

"Fail Early, Fail Often"

You all have heard me say this a lot lately. Don't take my word for it, here's some data from the Marshmallow Challenge:




We've done a lot of "Design-Build" challenges in our classes, should we give this one a go?

Here's a screenshot from the video that cuts to the heart of the issue. If each marshmallow from the diagram is an attempt, why is it that the Kindergartner's end result consistently outperform MBA students by more than 100%?:

Pneumatics!

Stan, Ruy and Armando have built the first operational piston system for our Machine Control Capstone Project. Nice job guys!

? - How could you employ this system in your robotic marble sorting solution?

Working on Solutions

Joe, John and Kingston in progress on solving one aspect of their marble sorting robot!:

Kinect-a-thon

Nice job Jackson:

Mobile Game Development: Enrichment Lesson 2!

Hi All,

Thanks for a great class this afternoon.

Between now and next week, please do the following:

1) What's a "game"? Come up with a short definition of a game (the shorter the better!). If you made bullet points, what would the key aspects of a game be? Keep it to three or four ideas.

2) Watch the Orb Smasher tutorial. The tutorial is about 45 minutes. It can be found on the learning corona website.

3) What questions do you have? Create a list of any questions you have about Corona SDK or using Lua. These questions will help me adjust our experience.

Don't Lose These!

Dear Principles of Engineering Students,

Please do not lose any of these sensitive items! We only have enough for one for each group:



These items are essential to the pneumatic systems we can integrate into our capstone projects.

What are pneumatics? How are they similar and different to hydraulics?

Click here to find an image of how we can set up a pneumatic compression system for our Fischertechnik kits.

#4!!!

"In the history of space flight, only four entities have launched a space capsule into orbit and successfully brought it back to earth..."

Who is Elon Musk? Why should you care?



?- What is Entrepreneurship?

?- How close did Space X come to failing?

?- Describe a moment where Elon's resilience played a role in the company persevering with their efforts.

?- Describe a problem that the Space X team overcame.

Kinect Projects

I'd like to see our Kinect team make some progress on something awesome. Maybe this would be a good first effort?:
You can find more out about this (including the processing code) here.