Feature: Engineering Icons
Posted on May 29th, 2018 by Mary Lord
Planning a road trip this summer? Whether en route to a beach, lake, or national park, there are plenty of engineering landmarks to admire along the way — including the interstate highway system, along which most travelers must pass. Here are some designated engineering destinations worth braking for!
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Tags: Amazing Engineering, bridges, Civil Engineering, cog railway, Engineering Achievements, Engineering in History, Family events, Lesson Plan, roller coasters
The Lemelson-MIT Program, located within the School of Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), is hosting three hands-on professional development workshops this summer aimed at helping middle and high school teachers nurture their students’ creativity and inventive mindsets.
Students in grades 7 to 9 build model roller coasters using pipe insulation and marbles, then analyze them using physics principles, including conversions between kinetic and potential energy and frictional effects. A class competition using various marbles to represent different passenger loads determines the most innovative and successful designs.
A lot of engineering goes into making today’s gravity-defying rides both exciting and safe. Read about some roller coaster designers and the skills they bring to creating the world’s most thrilling wooden, steel, and virtual-reality experiences.
Self-healing roads and Tick Tock, a Lyme disease-protection wristwatch that not only alerts wearers to the presence of ticks but sprays bug repellent are among the winners of the National Academy of Engineering’s 2018 EngineerGirl essay competition.
In this activity, small groups of students in grades 3 to 8 learn about forces, energy, and efficiency by measuring a bicycle’s gear ratios, calculating tire revolutions, and testing who can ride a course the swiftest based on that information.
