“If you build it, he will come.”

Ballparks have come a long way since that memorable line from the 1989 movie Field of Dreams prompted an Iowa farmer (Kevin Kostner) to carve a baseball diamond out of his corn field.

While civil engineers design ever-more spacious ballparks, electrical and computer engineers are helping stadiums harness the Internet of Things to reduce energy and other operational costs by 25 percent. New lightweight materials like EFTE allow for such innovations as a clear dome over the Minnesota Vikings new stadium, while the Miami Marlins ballpark was built to withstand hurricanes [National Geographic video] and audio-visual technology enhances the game-day experience. In a Bloomberg News interview, Joe Spear, founder of Populous, the world’s leading stadium designer, notes some of his favorite features. Among them, San Francisco’s viewing area where fans can watch the game for free – the only such venue in Major League Baseball.

Sports venues also have greater flexibility to add seating to accommodate blockbuster events. Denver’s stadium, for example, can add up to 10,000 seats. In addition, many are more environmentally conscious: at Marlins Park, the first LEED Silver-rated stadium, some parking areas are outfitted with charging stations for electric vehicles. Then there’s the 37,500 “living park,” a futuristic ballpark that Sports Illustrated asked Populous to envision.

There’s greater choice not only in dining options – from sushi in San Francisco to local legend Ben’s Chili Bowl hotdogs in Washington, D.C. – but also in delivery. Cincinnati Reds rolled out the nation’s first order-by-app kiosk in 2017, for example.

Engineers also help maintain ballparks. When the Baltimore Orioles needed to fix broken three-piece hinges on some 9,000 padded, field-level seats among the 45,971 seats at Camden Yards, the team turned to Maryland mechanical engineering graduate Todd Blatt and his 3D printing company, reports Shapeways magazine. The seat’s manufacturer had sold their product line to another firm, which didn’t make the replacement brackets.  Blatt measured the sample hinge with calipers, modeled it in AutoCAD, and created a way for the Orioles to order 3-D printed replacements as needed.

Bricks, mortar, and clicks aren’t the only ways engineers are improving ballparks. Duke University’s Missy Cummings, a professor of mechanical engineering and materials science, recently received a three-year, $750,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to develop inexpensive, passive ways to shoo drones away from ballparks and other public spaces. Her team at the Humans and Autonomy Laboratory, where she is director, got the idea from their work using drones to monitor elephants in African sanctuaries – and discovering that the noise “really bothered” the pachyderms.

Call it an example of life imitating art, but the Duke researchers are working with the local minor league team – the Durham Bulls – to test their solutions. Kevin Kostner fans will remember his starring role as the veteran catcher of that team in the 1988 smash, Bull Durham. 

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Deadline: February 1, 2018 at 11:59 p.m. EST
Level: Boys and girls in grades 3-12

“Engineering for your Community” is the theme of the National Academy of Engineering’s 2018 EngineerGirl! Essay Contest. Students in grades 3 to 12 can win up to $500 for writing pleas to convince local or national officials to improve public infrastructure, such as roads, trash collection, or the 9-1-1 emergency response system.

Prizes range from $100 to $500.

The contest is open to individual girls and boys in the following three competition categories :

1. Elementary School Students (grades 3-5); Essays must be 400 to 700 words.
2. Middle School Students in (grades 6-8); Essays must be 600 to 1,100 words.
3. High School Students (grades 9-12); Essays must be 1,000 to 1,500 words.

How to Enter

Write an essay which addresses the requirements in the contest description. Essays should be written clearly. They may be shorter than, but should not exceed, the word limit. Submit the essay through the Online Submission Form on the EngineerGirl! website, and include all required information.

Entries must be received by 11:59 p.m. (EST) on February 1, 2018. Click HERE for the contest rules.

What are the Awards?

All winning entries will be published on the EngineerGirl! website. (Please review the publication agreement before you submit your essay.) In addition, all winners will receive the prizes listed below:

• First-place winners will be awarded $500.
• Second-place entries will be awarded $250.
• Third-place entries will be awarded $100.

Honorable Mention entries will not receive a cash reward but will be published on the EngineerGirl! website.

Additional Rules

• Essays will be judged on the basis of design content, research, expression, and originality. You may wish to preview the 2013 Contest Scorecord.
• All essays must be the original work of the author submitting the entry and must not have been published anywhere else.
• A contestant may enter only one essay.
• All entries will be read by a panel of judges, whose selections will be final.

See last year’s winning essays on saving penguins, sea turtles, and Asian elephants HERE.

Need inspiration? Read this 2014 Washington Post story about a group of D.C. middle school students who successfully lobbied their legislators to build a bus shelter at their school.

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Flying T-Shirts activity from TeachEngineering contributed by the Integrated Teaching and Learning Program, College of Engineering, University of Colorado Boulder. Click HERE for similar maker challenge, T-Shirt Launch, which emphasizes design journals.

During home games, your school’s cheerleaders have decided they want to throw school T-shirts into the crowd during breaks. The problem is they don’t have any way to loft the shirts up to the top rows from the field (or court). The cheerleading coach has approached your class to see if you can design and build some device to help them out.

All engineering designs start with a need. For example, practical solar panels were engineered when companies like NASA needed a way to power satellites in space. The Internet was born when the U.S. military needed a way to communicate between computers. Here, cheerleaders need a way to get a T-shirt high into the stands. So now what do we do? As engineers, how do we actually go about designing something to meet our client’s need?

When faced with a design challenge, engineers follow the engineering design process. This process consists of the following five basic steps (write them on the board, in a circle arrangement): 1) ask, 2) imagine, 3) plan, 4) create, and 5) improve.

The first step is to identify the need or problem to be solved by “asking” yourself or someone else what issues need help. Then you “imagine” as many different ways as possible to meet the need. Team brainstorming helps with this step. In step three, you choose the best idea and figure out how to design it by making a “plan.” Then you “create” your design and because the first attempt is never perfect, step five is to “improve” on your design. Engineers typically follow this circular process as they design solutions to all kinds of challenges to make things better for people.

While all five steps are important, it is essential to emphasize the second and third steps: imagine and plan. During step 2, when you are imagining your design, it helps to work in teams and think “outside the box.” This helps generate more creative designs.

(optional; This is a good time to show an inspiring eight-minute ABC News Nightline video called “The Deep Dive,” which showcases an engineering design firm going through this creative step as they design a shopping cart. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M66ZU2PCIcM.)

Here’s one example of how your “out of the box” creative thinking can benefit an engineering design. Alligator clips are little devices that temporarily connect two or more wires (show Figure 3). How do you think someone came up with the idea for alligator clips? Well, during step 2, when a team was brainstorming, one engineer said something about training mice to bite down on the wire ends to hold them together. Although the idea seemed a bit ridiculous at the time, it led to the development of alligator clips, which act like mice biting down on the ends of two wires!

Procedure

Background

If students are given a real client who plans to use the device, it greatly increases students’ interest in the project and the quality of their designs. This client could be the cheerleading squad who will use the resulting working models during home sports games, or other students in the class who use their working model designs during an upcoming school pep rally. These arrangements take some extra time to set up but really make the project more meaningful and fun — a real-world project.

The design challenge itself is open ended, so designs could vary greatly, but given the constraints listed in #4 of the Procedure section, most “products” end up being some sort of catapult, slingshot or crossbow. Figure 1 shows two examples of the kinds of devices that might be designed. Limit the potential materials the students can request to basic supplies available at any hardware, grocery or dollar/discount store. Use or modify the attached Budget Sheet, which contains a fictional set of costs for the available materials, to present to students with their construction materials options. Remind students to plan ahead and keep their designs within the budget.

Two example t-shirt launching devices designed by students—a catapult (left) and slingshot (right). © 2008 Jonathan MacNeil, ITL Program, University of Colorado, Boulder.

Suggested Schedule

To complete this design challenge, give students twelve 50-minute class periods. To stay on schedule, require students to meet the interim deadlines and accomplishments suggested below.

Period 1: Introduce the project and the engineering design process. Begin brainstorming.

Period 2: Conduct the associated lesson, Physics of the Flying T-Shirt, and its two math worksheets.

Period 3: Continue brainstorming, this time with all the constraints in place.

Periods 4-5: Build a miniature prototype and draw a detailed sketch of the full-sized design.

Periods 6-10: Build the actual device. Have groups test and redesign their devices as time permits.

Periods 11-12: Final test for all groups. Project wrap up.

Before the Activity

• (optional) Arrange for a real-world “client” for the design challenge.
• Visit your local hardware (and/or grocery, dollar/discount) store to gather information on available materials and pricing. Personalize the Budget Sheet for your class project.
• Make copies of the Budget Sheet, Presentation Guidelines and Presentation Peer Review handouts.
• Prepare to show the class an eight-minute online video (see hot link in the Additional Multimedia Support section).
• Gather materials and tools to be used by the entire class.

With the Students

1. Period 1: Introduce the students to their engineering design challenge — to design and build a device to meet the cheerleading squad’s need. (allow 10 minutes)
2. Divide the class into groups of three or four students each.
3. Emphasize the importance of teamwork, thinking “outside the box,” and the engineering design process as students prepare to start step 2: imagine. At this point, do not impose too many (or any) constraints. Instead, encourage wild ideas (for example: hiring a really strong man to throw the shirts up into the stands, or using a miniature helicopter to fly the shirts up into the upper bleachers). As time permits, show the eight-minute ABC Nightline “The Deep Dive” video (see hotlink in the Additional Multimedia Support section). (allow 40 minutes)
4. Period 2: Conduct the associated Physics of the Flying T-Shirt lesson (and its two math worksheets) at this point. You want students to come to understand the importance of air resistance and launch angle and use this knowledge as they continue brainstorming during step 2 of the design process. For example, if students have not already thought about this, have them incorporate their understanding of air resistance to include fluid dynamic packaging of the t-shirts into their brainstorming session. (allow 50 minutes)
5. Period 3: Make clear all project requirements and constraints. Requirements might include ease of use by three or fewer cheerleaders, reaching a certain distance with a certain level of accuracy, safety, reliability, and ease of repair. Constraints might include (but are not limited to) a $30 budget and no explosions. Have groups brainstorm some more and then narrow their ideas to what is feasible. Explain the types of energy that will be demonstrated in this project. Students that use a catapult, slingshot, or crossbow design will be converting elastic potential energy to kinetic energy. Or, perhaps a group will design a trebuchet or other device that relies on gravitational potential energy to be converted to kinetic energy. (allow 50 minutes)
6. Periods 4-5: Have students start step 3 (plan) by picking their best idea and then quickly designing a miniature prototype using office and classroom supplies and small arts and crafts supplies. Require that the prototype be sized to be easily carried in one hand. Students will naturally move to step 4 (create) once they have their materials. These prototypes do not necessarily have to be working models; the idea is to create a visual and generate other issues before designing/creating their full-scale model. (allow 50 minutes)
7. Periods 6-10: Once teams have finished prototype building, have them complete step 5 (improve) by analyzing their prototype and imagining what difficulties they might face when building the full-scaled model. This naturally leads (again) to steps 1-2-3 (ask-imagine-plan) as they design a full-sized device. Require that designs include a detailed drawing and a materials list to build it. At this point, check the designs to make sure they are feasible, and begin to compile a shopping list of materials for each group. (allow 50 minutes)
8. Give each group their materials and start step 4 (create). Some groups may need to use basic power tools so spend some time showing the class how to safely use the available tools. Encourage teams to finish early so they have time to test their designs and make modifications. (allow 200 minutes)
9. (optional) Have students create user’s manuals for their devices.
10. Periods 11-12: Hold a test day in which the entire class goes outside to test their devices. (allow 50 minutes)
11. When all the building and testing is done, wrap up the project. Have groups present their devices to the class. Give each group a Presentation Guidelines handout that clarifies the presentation requirements. Also have students use the Presentation Peer Review to provide feedback for each presentation.

Additional Resources

Who Made that T-Shirt Cannon? New York Times June 21, 2013 article about Tim Derk, whose 90-pound gun debuted in the 1990s, when he worked as the Coyote mascot for the San Antonio Spurs.

VIDEOS

Engineering Design Process Science, Engineering & Design! Video 2 is an MIT student-made explanation using the steps he followed to design, build, test, and improve a prototype automatic volleyball server. [YouTube 7:58]

Overview of the Engineering Design Process Bucknell University electrical engineering senior capstone project explains the steps in designing a new process or product, including Gantt charts to track progress. [YouTube 15:37]

Contributors

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Activity developed by educators at the Mid-Columbian STEM Education Collaboratory. Click HERE for PDF.

Another version of this design activity, using sandcastles, can be found here. Adapted from TeachEngineering’s Engineering for the Three Little Pigs, it originally ran in the August 2014 eGFI Teachers’ newsletter.

Summary

Three teams of elementary students act as civil and structural engineers to design and build a house using a finite amount of materials that the big, bad wolf cannot blow down.

Grade level: K-5 but can be adapted for older and younger students

Time: 45-60 minutes

Learning objectives

After doing this challenge, students should be able to:

• Understand and follow the steps in the engineering design process
• Evaluate the effectiveness of different materials
• Work within the constraints of time and materials, as engineers do
• Work with teammates to accomplish a task

Learning standards

Next Generation Science Standards

Physical Science and Engineering Design. Students who demonstrate understanding can:

• K-PS2-1 Plan and conduct an investigation to compare the effects of different strengths or different directions of pushes and pulls on the motion of an object.
• K-PS2-2 Analyze data to determine if a design solution works as intended to change the speed or direction of an object with a push or a pull.
• 2-PS1-2 Analyze data obtained from testing different materials to determine which materials have the properties that are best suited for an intended purpose
• 3-PS2-1 Plan and conduct an investigation to provide evidence of the effects of balanced and unbalanced forces on the motion of an object.
• 3-PS2-2 Make observations and/or measurements of an object’s motion to provide evidence that a pattern can be used to predict future motion.
• K-2-ETS1-1 Ask questions, make observations, and gather information about a situation people want to change to define a simple problem that can be solved through the development of a new or improved object or tool.
• K-2-ETS1-2 Develop a simple sketch, drawing, or physical model to illustrate how the shape of an object helps it function as needed to solve a given problem.
• K-2-ETS1-3 Analyze data from tests of two objects designed to solve the same problem to compare the strengths and weaknesses of how each performs.
• 3-5-ETS1-1 Define a simple design problem reflecting a need or a want that includes specified criteria for success and constraints on materials, time, or cost.
• 3-5-ETS1-2 Generate and compare multiple possible solutions to a problem based on how well each is likely to meet the criteria and constraints of the problem.
• 3-5-ETS1-3 Plan and carry out fair tests in which variables are controlled and failure points are considered to identify aspects of a model or prototype that can be improved.

Common Core State Literacy Standards

• Kindergarten: With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details in a text; retell familiar stories, including key details; and identify characters, settings, and major events in a story.
• First Grade: Ask and answer questions about key details in a text; Retell stories, including key details, and demonstrate understanding of their central message or lesson; Describe characters, settings, and major events in a story, using key details.
• Second Grade: Ask and answer such questions as who, what, where, when, why, and how to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text; recount stories, including fables and folktales from diverse cultures, and determine their central message, lesson, or moral; and describe how characters in a story respond to major events and challenges.
• Third Grade: Ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for the answers; recount stories, including fables, folktales, and myths from diverse cultures; determine the central message, lesson, or moral and explain how it is conveyed through key details in the text; and describe characters in a story (e.g., their traits, motivations, or feelings) and explain how their actions contribute to the sequence of events.
• Fourth Grade: Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text; determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem and summarize the text; and describe in depth a character, setting, or event in a story or drama, drawing on such details as a character’s thoughts, words, or actions.
• Fifth Grade: Quote accurately from a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text; determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text, including how characters in a story or drama respond to challenges or how the speaker in a poem reflects upon a topic; and summarize the text.

See Oklahoma Education Department’s question scaffolding for The Three Little Pigs and Bloom’s deeper learning.

Materials

For each team:

• Approximately 50 Popsicle sticks for Team 1
• Approximately 50 small straws (e.g., for hot drinks) for Team 2
• Approximately 50 index cards for Team 3
• 1 thick, cardboard base (e.g., 5 ½ in.×8 in.) to serve as a foundation
• 1 poster board roof (e.g., 4 in.×8 in.)
• 1 yard of masking tape
• 1 piece of paper and a pencil

For each student:

• 1 Reflection Page (see supplemental materials)

For the group:

• 1 copy of The Three Little Pigs by Paul Galdone (or other version)
• 1 multi-speed box fan; if only a single speed is available, distance from the fan can be decreased to achieve low, medium, and high wind speeds.
• 1 Data Table (see Supplemental Materials)

Procedure  

Preparation

In order to turn the box fan into the “Big, Bad Wolf,” consider printing out and adhering the picture of the wolf to the top of the fan (see Supplemental Materials and Artifacts documents). Then, “low” fan speed can be referred to as “Huffing and Puffing Level 1,” and so forth.

Set up a “Materials Science Table” for teams to pick up what they need for the challenge. When deciding on supplies to serve as “straw, sticks, and brick,” consider possible recycled or reuse items (see Artifacts document). The materials described in this lesson are easily found in formal or informal educational settings, or available for purchase at low cost. If you are working with more than three groups, variations on building materials can also be tried (see below for “Materials Science Adaptation”).

It is recommended that foundations and roofs are made of the same materials for all groups for a more accurate comparison of the effects of different building materials (e.g., straw, sticks, and brick).

Introduce the challenge

• Read The Three Little Pigs aloud to the class. Consider using the GLAD (Guided Language Acquisition Design) Narrative input chart as a strategy to support early reader and language-diverse students.
• After reading, discuss the need to build a good strong house. Consider linking it to local weather conditions (e.g., wind, tornadoes, and hurricanes; see Artifacts document for an example).
• Divide students or participants into at least three teams of two.
• Introduce the “Three Little Pig STEM Design Challenge Requirements Card” (see Supplemental Materials). For example:Your house must be built on the foundation provided and use the roof provided.  (Note: The roof is the top of the house and the foundation what the house is built on.)Your house must be built with only the materials you are provided.Your team must have “fair-share work”- listen to all ideas!Your team only has 20 minutes to complete this task and be ready for testing
• Introduce students to the “Engineering Design Process” (see Supplemental Materials and Artifacts documents).
• Show students the “Big, Bad Wolf” fan so they understand the force of the wind (i.e., huffing and puffing level) they will be trying to build the house to withstand.
• Assign each team a material to work with (e.g., straw, sticks, or brick).
• Encourage students to draw or sketch a design idea first. Note: This step supports the NGSS (Next Generation Science Standard) Science and Engineering Practices of “Planning and carrying out Investigations” and “Developing and using models.”
• Hand out or have one person from each team gather the appropriate building materials from the Materials Science Table. Pass out one yard of masking tape to each team. Each group is only assigned or given one material to work with.
• Establish a time limit for designing, redesigning, and building and allow teams to start building (e.g., 20 minutes).
• When time is up, have each team bring their house to the testing zone where they can share their design with other groups.
• Have the students place/orient their house in the test zone as they wish it to be tested. Note: The same distance from the fan should be used for all groups.
• Turn the fan on low (i.e., Huffing and Puffing Level 1) for 10 seconds. If it survives, go to medium (i.e., Huffing and Puffing Level 2) for 20 seconds. If it survives, turn the fan high (i.e., Huffing and Puffing Level 3” for 30 seconds. If the house is still standing…. SUCCESS! If not, it is a good opportunity for teams to think of design improvements after seeing other houses.
• Use the group Data Table to record each team’s results for analysis. Note: This step the NGSS-Science and Engineering Practices of “Analyzing and Interpreting Data.”
• Test all houses.    
• Discuss results as a group.
• Have each team discuss and document what they would do to improve their design. If time allows, have each team give an oral presentation of what they would do to optimize their house design. This adaptation supports the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) of “Speaking and Listening,” as well as NGSS Science and Engineering Standard of “Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information.”
• If time allows, have teams modify (i.e., re-design) and re-test.
• Hand out one “Student Reflection Page” to each student. (See supplemental materials; see artifacts pages for examples.) Allow students reflection time to evaluate their work and design.

Conclusion

Group discussion or written responses as time and age level allows.

• Based on the “Data Table,” what materials appear to withstand the huffing and puffing of the “Big, Bad Wolf” the best?
• Why do you think these materials were more effective than others?
• Was your team able to design and build a house that survived the “Big, Bad, Wolf?”
• What “Huffing and Puffing” level did your house withstand?
• Even if your house survived, what would you do to improve your design based on other houses that you observed?
• Thinking about the real world, can you come up with a list of all the different jobs or people need to build just one house?
• How many of these jobs require an understanding of science, technology, engineering, and/or math? (star or highlight them on the list)

Activity scaling/extension

For upper level students or to increase the level of challenge, add the task of engineering the roof and foundation within certain constraints (e.g., specific sizes or specific materials as described in the “Materials” section).

For multicultural students, introduce The Three Little Pigs in different cultural contexts, (e.g., The Three Little Javelinas, a southwestern adaptation, by Susan Lowell, illustrated by Jim Harris). Consider having multiple versions on display for participants to explore.

Math Connection/Adaptation: To increase math understanding, students can inventory the supplies used in the house. The instructor could supply a cost sheet, which could vary in complexity for the different ages of students. Students can evaluate the final cost of their home and share that as part of presenting their design for testing.

Regardless of design success when tested in front of the box fan, the instructor could challenge students to figure out the cost of improvement to meet success, or to minimize total cost.

Materials Science Adaptation: Different sized “straws” (e.g., coffee, soda, or wide-mouth, etc.), “sticks” (e.g., Popsicle sticks of different lengths and widths, wooden stirring sticks, real sticks, etc.), and “bricks” (e.g., cardboard from cereal boxes, cleaned and cut-out juice carton walls, glued vs. unglued index cards, etc.) can be used to test the effects that building materials, from the same category, can have on design performance. Styrofoam bases (e.g., cleaned food packaging materials) could serve as the foundation for the houses instead of cardboard, or corrugated cup holders instead of poster board could serve as roofs. Different costs can be associated with different materials of the same category, as well. See artifacts document for ideas.)

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Join us for these hands-on sessions designed to help you put the “E” in your STEM classes at the American Society for Engineering Education day at the National Science Teachers Association’s regional conference in New Orleans (December 1, 2017).

Or scroll down to see highlights from ASEE Engineering Day presentations at the National Science Teachers Association’s regional conference in Baltimore on Friday, October 6, 2017, and Milwaukee (November 11, 2017).

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Some 18 states and the District of Columbia have adopted the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) since they were introduced in 2013. The learning standards, which include engineering design and are aligned with rigorous reading and mathematics standards, reflect recommendations put forth in a National Academy of Sciences.

Now, the NGSS website has been updated and made more user-friendly, based on feedback from teachers, administrators, district and state leaders, and advocates.

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After Hurricane Harvey flooded Houston and the Texas coast with historic rains, rendering roads impassable, engineering educators from Texas A&M University offered a quick, inexpensive way to survey the damage.

They deployed drones – lots of them – in the biggest squadron ever used in official disaster response, according to the National Science Foundation.

The federal agency, which sees promise in this emerging field in areas from weather research and wildlife conservation to cheaper monitoring of America’s aging infrastructure, has committed $35 million to advance basic research in this emerging field.

Aggie drones evaluated the conditions in the Corpus Christi shipping channel and checked on dams and other infrastructure. Texas A&M’s Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue (CRASAR) deployed 119 drone flights in 11 days, including helping Fort Bend County officials monitor river heights and assess damage to the Brazos River bridge. (Video above and photo, right).

The Center, which has NSF support, also sent drones to survey New Orleans in Hurricane Katrina’s wake – the first time an unmanned aerial system was used in emergency damage assessment.

Jerry Hendrix, executive director of the university’s Lone Star UAS (unmanned aerial system) program, said this was a preview of how governments would respond to disasters in the future. “Like police officers are trained to work in K-9 units, there will be search and rescue professionals trained to use drones,” he told the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.  

One advantage for drones over helicopters is their ability to fly lower and closer to obstacles, such as bridge struts, to get better vantage points on conditions on the ground. For example, homes that looked fine from high above turned out to be washed out when viewed lower down. “Some areas look like a war zone without the craters,” Hendrix told the newspapers.  “Some vacant lots look fine, but you realize there were houses there before.”

Drones also have been deployed to carry vaccines and other medical products into disaster zones. Zipline, a California robotics start-up, has completed 1,400 flights and delivered 2,600 units of blood to health facilities in Rwanda over the past year, according to The Verge. The drones, which have a range of 45 miles and can carry packages of up to 3.3 pounds, are able to deliver medical goods around the clock in any weather, usually within 30 minutes of an order placed via a mobile phone.

While unmanned drones are still in the test phase, Texas A&M team’s involvement in recovering from the late August 2017 hurricane suggest a wide variety of useful roles. The Federal Aviation Administration issued at least 137 UAV authorizations to groups involved in response and recovery operations in Texas. Less than two weeks later, the agency issued another 132 authorizations to similar groups in Florida after Hurricane Irma slammed into the Sunshine State on September 10. Drones revealed the full extent of Hurricane Irma’s impact on the Florida Keys (video below) and monster Category 5 Hurricane Maria’s devastation of Puerto Rico,

Meanwhile, Aggie engineering researchers continue to upgrade search and rescue robots dispatched to scour the rubble for survivors after earthquakes and examine the radioactive environment after a tsunami damaged the nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Japan.

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As a high school student, Alice Zhai recalls watching the TV when Hurricane Sandy struck New York and wondering how a relatively weak but large storm could cause such devastation. “I was really curious,” the Southern California teen told NASA’s Earth Science news team.

Her curiosity led to a 2013 project in the Los Angeles County Science Fair, where her novel statistical model of economic losses from hurricanes won an outstanding achievement award from the American Meteorological Society’s L.A. chapter.  It also led to a collaboration with Jonathan Jiang, a scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory who was a judge at the science fair – and a paper the following year in the professional journal Environmental Research Letters. She was just 16 at the time, and about to start her senior year at La Cañada High School.

Zhai and Jiang found that the common practice of using only wind speed to represent hurricanes in economic damage models is inadequate for large storms, such as 2012’s Hurricane Sandy. They were the first to quantify the economic impacts of increasing hurricane size.

Analyzing 73 hurricanes from 1988 to the present, Zhai and Jiang found that a doubling in size, without a change in wind speed, more than quadruples the economic loss a hurricane causes. Tripling its size multiplies the loss by almost 20 times.

Experience has shown that not only size but the height of the storm surge, total rainfall, and other characteristics affect a storm’s impact. But the United States still classifies hurricanes solely by their speed, using the Saffir-Simpson scale. The scale was devised before satellite observations made it possible to view a storm’s size.

Yet there is no standardized scale of hurricane size. Different databases use different benchmarks — for example, the distance from the storm’s center to the location where the wind speed is either 34 or 64 nautical miles per hour, or knots. As part of their study, Zhai and Jiang recalibrated all storms to the 34-knot reference point.

Under Jiang’s direction, Zhai kept working on her model to create publishable results, more than doubling the number of storms in the study and doing a more rigorous statistical analysis. The first time the authors submitted the paper, it was turned down. But the reviewers comments were encouraging, so they pressed ahead, modifying and resubmitting the paper.

Jiang encouraged Zhai to apply for an internship at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena and then convinced her adviser there to allow Zhai to expand her hurricane work at JPL over the summer. The work included improving their hurricane loss model by adding factors such as storm duration and regional economic wealth, and using more accurate data on hurricane size based on measurements from NASA’s QuikScat satellite.

Zhai, who thrived among the postdoctoral fellows, went into the lab unsure of what she wanted to study in college. Working in a professional setting ignited a desire to pursue a career in math and science. Winning a $50,000 award from the Davidson Institute later that summer ensured she could follow her dreams. (Read the Los Angeles Times account from August 2014.)

Now majoring in applied and computational mathematics at Caltech, Zhai was a data analysis intern at Facebook this past summer.

Filed under: K-12 Outreach Programs, Special Features | Comments Off on Teen Invents New Hurricane Damage Model

Hurricanes, tornadoes, and other destructive weather events offer timely “teachable moments” about the role of engineers in improving forecasts and reducing the toll from natural disasters.

Engineers design sturdier buildings and shore up coastlines.  They operate drones – like the unmanned aerial vehicles in the above video deployed by Texas A&M researchers during Hurricane Harvey – that measure wind speeds and survey damage. Some create sophisticated software systems that allow aircraft to safely land and take off as deadly storms approach. Others are on the front lines, helping to pull stranded people from rushing floodwaters, erecting emergency shelters and water supply systems, and guiding search and rescue robots. Still others are instrumental to revising building codes and helping to rebuild devastated communities. NASA’s damage maps, for instance, aided emergency response in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria knocked out power and stranded families island-wide.

We’ve collected activities and features from eGFI Teachers newsletters and ASEE’s Prism magazine to help you integrate engineering into your STEM classrooms – and inspire the next generation of “crisis engineers.”

Newsletters

The following newsletters contain activities and articles on natural or man-made disasters and engineering:

• Hit the Beach! (Engineering Resilient Coasts, June 2017)
• When Disaster Strikes (Natural Disaster Engineering, June 2015)
• Disaster Engineering (Asteroid Apocalypse, June, 2013)
• Helping Hands (Emergency Preparedness, Sept. 2012)
• Not A Drop (Drought, Aug. 2012)
• Learning from Tragedy (9/11 anniversary, Sept. 2011)
• Tornado Season Strikes (April 2011)
• Japan: Huge Engineering Task (Tsunami, March 2011)
• Risks & Rescues (Chilean mining disaster, Oct. 2010)
• Emergency Response (Haiti earthquake, Oct. 2010)

Activities     

Multiple grades 

Building for Hurricanes [Grades K-12] [Engineering design, Civil and Structural Engineering, Forces, Physics]

In this engineering design challenge about building in hurricane-prone regions, students learn that a solid base helps stabilize a structure by constructing, testing, and redesigning a tower that can support a tennis ball at least 18 inches off the ground while withstanding the wind from a fan.

Three Little Pigs Design Challenge [Grades PreK-5 but suitable for all grade levels] [Engineering Design, Civil and Structural Engineering, Physics, Forces]

Teams of students act as civil engineers to design and build a house with limted materials and time that can withstand the huffing and puffing of the big bad wolf.

Shipwreck Survival [Grades 4-10] [Engineering Design]

Working in small teams, students design, build and test solutions to survive on a deserted island.

  Disaster-proof Housing [Grades 5-11] [Engineering Design, Civil and Structural Engineering, Forces]

In this activity for middle school science, high school physics, or engineering courses, groups of students explore the housing crisis caused by natural disasters by applying appropriate technology and fluid mechanics to design sustainable shelters that can withstand flooding and high winds.

Prevent Soil Erosion [Grades 5-12] [Civil and Environmental Engineering, Engineering Design, Waves, Forces, Erosion,]

Students design a seawall to protect a major coastal highway from erosion by ocean waves and address these questions: Erosion–can you fight it? How much energy is involved with waves and erosion? Can humans stop shoreline erosion? Should we?

 Build an Earthquake-proof Structure [Grades 6-12] [Engineering Design, Civil and Structural Engineering, Materials, Forces]

Students are challenged to build a drinking straw tower that can withstand simulated earthquake vibrations and increasing weight and pressure. Doing so, they learn basic principles of design and earthquake engineering while practicing team skills.

Sand & Water [Grades 3-8] [Earth Science, Environmental Engineering, Engineering Design, Coastal Erosion]

Students learn about cohesive and adhesive forces and the engineering design process by building sandcastles using wet sand

Save Our Shore! [Grades 3-8] [Earth Science, Environmental and Civil Engineering, Engineering Design, Coastal Erosion]

Students study beach erosion and then apply the engineering design process to devise ways to protect coastlines that take public concerns into account.

Tsunami Survival [Grades 3-8] [Civil and Structural Engineering, Fluid Dynamics, Forces, Materials, Architecture, Engineering Design]

Students use a table-top tsunami generator to observe the devastation of these huge waves. They make villages of model buildings to test how different material types are impacted and learn how engineers design buildings to survive tsunamis.

Elementary School 

Design a Tornado-proof Building [Grades 3-5] [Earth Science, Engineering Design, Civil and Structural Engineering]

Teams of students use their knowledge of tornadoes and damage to design a structure that will withstand wind and protect people from twisters. Each group will create a poster with the name of their engineering firm and a picture of their structure, then present their design to the class.

 Engineering for the Three Little Pigs [Grades P-5] [Earth Science, Engineering Design, Materials, Civil and Structural Engineering]              

Students learn about the importance of using the right materials for the job by building three different sand castles and testing them for strength and resistance to weathering. They then discuss how the buildings are different and what engineers need to think about when using rocks, soils, and minerals for construction. Includes links to an NGSS-based Three Little Pigs design challenge suitable for PreK-5 students that uses straw and other materials and involves testing with a hairdryer.

Save Our City [Grades 3-5] [Weather, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Engineering Design]

Students learn about various natural hazards and specific methods engineers use to prevent these hazards from becoming natural disasters. They study a hypothetical map of an area covered with natural hazards and decide where to place natural disaster prevention devices by applying their critical thinking skills and an understanding of the causes of natural disasters.

Where’s Our Water? [Grades 3-5] [Environmental engineering; Engineering Design; Water Cycle; Earth Science]

In this scenario-based activity, students design ways to either clean a water source or find a new water source, depending on given hypothetical family scenarios. They act as engineers to draw and write about what they could do to provide water to a community facing a water crisis. They learn basic steps of the engineering design process.

Middle School

Asteroid Impact! [Grades 6-8] [Earth Science, Engineering Design]

In this first of eight activities, students learn about the engineering design process and earth science by beginning to design an underground cavern that can shelter people for one year after an asteroid strike makes Earth uninhabitable.

Backyard Weather Station [Grades 6-8] [Weather, Earth Science, Citizen Science]

Working in groups of 8, students use their senses to describe and predict the weather, then act as state park engineers and design/build “backyard weather stations” to gather data to make actual weather forecasts.

 The Great Wave [Grades 6-8] [Environmental and Civil Engineering; Tsunami; Fluid Dynamics; Forces and Motion; Physics] 

Students in grades 6-8 learn what causes a tsunami, the physics behind its movement, and how scientists know when one is forming. They study its impact on a model town and learn about a 10-year-old girl credited with saving dozens of lives when a tsunami struck Samoa.

 Weather Forecasting [Grades 6-8] [Earth and Space Science and Technology]

Hurricane season is here, reminding us that accurate weather forecasts can be a matter of life and death in vulnerable coastal areas of the country. Even inland, severe thunderstorms play havoc with late-summer travel, and tornadoes threaten lives and property. In this lesson for grades 6 to 8, students begin by considering how weather forecasting plays an important part in their daily lives. They learn about the history of weather forecasting — from old weather proverbs to modern forecasting equipment — and how improvements in weather technology have saved lives by providing advance warning of natural disasters.

High School

 Who Moved the Beach? [Grades 9-12] [Environmental Science and Engineering, Civil and Structural Engineering, Earth Science, Weather, Data]

High school students working in groups of three to four learn about the primary causes and impacts of coastal erosion, and use elevation data to construct profiles of a beach over time or to compare several beaches, make inferences about the erosion process, and discuss how humans should respond.

Features

Citizen Engineers

When Haiti suffered a devastating earthquake in 2010, Notre Dame engineering researchers created an online system that let students review hundreds of photos and reliably classify the structural damage. The effort is just one example of how “citizen engineers” and “citizen scientists” are advancing research in areas from astronomy to air pollution to penguins. Even snowflakes!

Crowd-sourcing Coastal Resilience 

Hurricane Sandy’s devastating floods exposed the need to re-engineer coastal communities for resilience and sparked a novel method to generate innovative design solutions: Crowd-sourcing. The six competition winners are now putting their ideas into practice.

Elementary School Principal Saves Students from Tsunami 

A Japanese elementary school principal’s quick thinking saved his students’ lives after March 11’s colossal tsunami hit their school building. He immediately called the first- and second-graders who were playing outside into the school before guiding a total of 90 people — students, teachers and residents — onto the top of the two-story school building.

Emergency Response

ASEE Prism magazine article from 2010 explores the work of “crisis engineers,” who bring needed skills and order to disaster zones, easing victims’ plight with water, shelter, and sanitation systems.

An Engineer – And Slam Poet

Nehemiah J. Mabry, a structural engineer, educator, and entrepreneur from North Carolina, took home a grand prize in the National Academy of Engineering’s Engineering for You (E4U) video contest with an on-screen recitation of his slam poem, “Future Cities with Intelligent Infrastructure.”

Engineered for Earthquakes

From buildings that sway rather than collapse to tsunami seawalls and drills, Japan’s earthquake precautions have made the nation uniquely prepared for disaster. Learn how Japanese construct skyscrapers and other earthquake-resistant engineering in this New York Times feature. Such practices undoubtedly helped save lives, though the toll from last week’s temblor and giant wave continues to mount.

Engineering A Difference

If safe, clean drinking water flows from your tap, thank the teams of engineers who design, maintain, and upgrade the complex systems that deliver life’s most vital fluid. Indeed, engineering is all about identifying and solving society’s urgent problems–as your students will see in “Engineering a Difference,” an award-winning video series sponsored by the National Science Foundation.

Engineering Post-9/11

In the decade since the September 11 attacks, engineers have been involved in helping the nation recover, from improving security to designing memorials and soaring new structures to rise over the rubble at Ground Zero. Here’s a sampler for learning more about engineering’s role, including past features from ASEE’s PRISM magazine.

Engineering Students to the Rescue

Earthquake-shattered Haiti is a world apart from America’s grassy college campuses. Yet for a growing number of U.S. engineering undergraduates, the country serves as a living classroom where they can apply their knowledge and skills to help real people – half a million of whom still live under tarps or tents – recover from the worst natural disaster in modern times.

Engineering Students win Shelter Design Contest

Few senior design projects ever go further than the classroom. Not so for four Calvin College civil and environmental engineering students. Their capstone project – a disastershelter – took top honors in a national contest.

Gimme Shell-ter

Like many New Jersey shore communities, Gandy’s Beach was devastated by Hurricane Sandy in 2012. The solution? Engage schools in a real-world restoration project: building a living breakwater from bags of old shells to protect both oyster beds and shorelines from future storm damage.

Robots to the Rescue

They got out of cars, climbed stairs, opened doors – and fell. But the mechanical humans that went through their paces in the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency’s Robotics Challenge in June showed that they could assist in disasters.

A Robot that can Swim Through Sand

By studying lizards, a team of Georgia Institute of Technology researchers has created a snake-like robot that can move through sand.  They hope the technology will lead to advanced landmine detection systems, better earthquake monitoring, or sub-surface discoveries on other planets.

ASEE Prism Articles

Storm Riders (Nov. 2004) Stephen Budiansky’s look at how a series of hurricanes gave coastal and civil engineering educators in Florida an up-close, personal research opportunity to put theory into practice.

Send in the Engineers (April 2005) Thomas K. Grose writes about the engineering researchers who sprang into action to study the deadly tsunami that devastated coastal communities in 11 countries following the massive earthquake off the coast of Indonesia on December 26, 2004.

Down But Not Out (Nov. 2005) Thomas K. Grose, Mary Lord, and Lynn Shallcross explore how Tulane, the University of New Orleans, and other Gulf Coast engineering schools weathered and recovered from Hurricane Katrina. Issue included an reflections on Katrina by Marybeth Lima, then an associate professor of biological and agricultural engineering at Louisiana State University.

Shaky Ground (April 2006) Pierre-Home Douglas’s profile of University of Hawaii, Manoa, civil and environmental engineering professor Peter Nicholson, who led a team of engineers from industry and academia to comb through the post-Katrina rubble looking for clues on how to improve safety and rebuild New Orleans.

When Disaster Strikes (Nov. 2008) Mary Lord describes the beefed up emergency preparedness measures two Katrina-ravaged engineering schools instituted.  The issue included When Disaster Strikes, Peggy Loftus’s study of the valuable design lessons that engineering schools learned from Katrina and the subsequent recovery efforts.

Crisis Engineers (Sept. 2009) Thomas K. Grose reports on the skills and order that engineers bring to disaster zones, easing victims’ plight with water, shelter, and sanitation systems.

Time and Tide (Nov. 2009) David Zax examines what engineering researchers are doing to fortify cities and coasts from rising sea levels.

Learning from Disaster (April 2012) Lucille Craft profiles mechanical engineer Yotaro Hatamura, Japan’s go-to scholar of accidents, who investigated what went wrong at the Fukushima nuclear power plant meltdown.

Off-Campus Crusaders (March 2016) Cover story on engineering academics who respond to crises, investigate disasters, and challenge authority includes a profile of retired Berkeley forensic civil engineer Robert Bea and his successful effort to fault the Army Corps of Engineers and their levees for Hurricane Katrina’s widespread devastation.

More Than Talk (January 2017) Prism editor Mark Matthews and Associate Editor Jennifer Pocock examine how academic engineers from multiple disciplines are responding with characteristic curiosity and can-do pragmatism to measure and, where possible, mitigate the effects of drought, tornadoes, and other extreme weather.

Additional educational resources    

Weather and Climate education.  Interactive water-cycle games, videos, and other teaching resources from NASA’s Precipitation Measurement Missions.

Extreme Weather News. The latest on hurricane tracks, rainfall amounts, and other storm news from NASA’s Precipitation Measurement Missions.

NASA’s Hurricanes and Tropical Storms webpage. Thermal images, videos, and more.

NASA’s Rescue 406. The space agency’s free game app lets players use information from satellites orbiting high above Earth to direct rescue efforts in an emergency. You’ll need to be quick to keep up with an increasing number of people in trouble!

last updated 9/29/17  Photo of Puerto Rican families stranded by Hurricane Maria from U.S. Customs and Border Patrol.

Filed under: Class Activities, Grades 6-8, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Grades 9-12, Grades K-5, Grades K-5, Lesson Plans, Special Features | Comments Off on Disaster Engineering