The James Dyson Foundation offers several educational resources online and through loans to teachers. Among them, the Engineering Box, available to Chicago-area schools, is designed to teach reverse engineering, can be borrowed for four weeks at a time for free. The Box’s items, which include a Dyson DC26 vacuum cleaner, seven Dyson Turbine Head floor tools, one Dyson Carbon fiber floor tool, and eight Torx screwdrivers, are used in combination with the Foundation’s Teacher’s Pack and Product Analysis resources.

The Engineering Box is meant for students ages 11-18, but can also be used for younger students and at universities. Orders for the Box also include the Teacher’s Pack, James Dyson’s autobiography Against the Odds, and design engineering posters (also viewable and downloadable online), all three of which teachers and schools get to keep.

The James Dyson Foundation Teacher’s Pack features profiles of Dyson design engineers, the history of how the bagless vacuum cleaner was developed, and activities for classrooms. The pack includes detailed instructions on how to disassemble the DC26 vacuum cleaner.

Also available to Chicagoans are the cardboard Build Your Own Cyclone kit, designed to teach the principle of centrifugal force, and information on the DC11 design process.

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Tags: Corporations, Internet Resources, Reverse Engineering, Teacher Resources, Technology for Learning, Web Resources