Students work as materials and chemical engineers to develop a bouncy ball using a select number of materials. They move through the engineering design process. They first develop a plan of what materials they might need to design their product. Then, the students create and test their bouncy ball. Based on their tests, students then determine how to re-design and retest their creations to create the bounciest ball possible!

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Music: Milos

Students apply several methods developed to identify and interpret patterns to the identification of fingerprints. They look at their classmates' fingerprints, snowflakes, and "spectral fingerprints" of elements. They learn to identify each image as unique, yet part of a group containing recognizable similarities.

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Audio: campfire_song

Students see how potential energy (stored energy) can be converted into kinetic energy (motion). Acting as if they were engineers designing vehicles, they use rubber bands, pencils and spools to explore how elastic potential energy from twisted rubber bands can roll the spools. They brainstorm, prototype, modify, test and redesign variations to the basic spool racer design in order to meet different design criteria, ultimately facing off in a race competition. These simple-to-make devices store potential energy in twisted rubber bands and then convert the potential energy to kinetic energy upon release.

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Music: Double Agent - Everet Almond

For this maker challenge, students move through the engineering design process. They investigate Python and Jupyter Notebook to analyze real astronomical images in order to calculate the interstellar distance to a star cluster across the Milky Way from our own Solar System. They learn how to write Python code that runs in a Jupyter Notebook so they can determine the brightness of stars in an astronomical image. Next, students complete the functions in the project to determine how far away a single star in the cluster is from Earth. This is a chance to try hands-on astronomical research techniques in the field of aperture photometry. The real astronomical image data will be directly manipulated and analyzed by code the students create. Groups compare their final images and results to answer questions about the astronomy of stars and stellar distances within the Milky Way. Students experience their discoveries the same way Harvard scientist Harlow Shapley first learned the true size and shape of the Milky Way.

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https://www.teachengineering.o....rg/makerchallenges/v

TeachEngineering has over 1,500 FREE lessons and activities. Visit https://www.teachengineering.org/ for more

Music: Aimless Amos

Students are asked to design methods to filter water using ordinary materials, while also considering their designs' material and cost efficiencies. They learn about the importance of water and its role in our everyday lives. They come to understand what must occur each day so that they can have clean water.

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Students research simple machines and other mechanisms as they learn about and make Rube Goldberg machines. Working in teams, students design and build their own Rube Goldberg devices with 10 separate steps, including at least six simple machines. In addition to the use of readily available classroom craft supplies, 3D printers may be used (if available) to design and print one or more device mechanisms. Students love this open-ended, team-building project with great potential for creativity and humor.

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https://www.teachengineering.o....rg/makerchallenges/v

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Music: Roger That - Silent Partner

Through Internet research, patent research, standards and codes research, user interviews (if possible) and other techniques (idea web, reverse engineering), students further develop the context for their design challenge. In subsequent activities, the design teams use this body of knowledge about the problem to generate product design ideas. (Note: Conduct this activity in the context of a design project that students are working on, which could be a challenge determined by the teacher, brainstormed with the class, or the example project challenge provided [to design a prosthetic arm that can perform a mechanical function]. This activity is Step 2 in a series of seven steps that guide students through the engineering design process.)

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Music - Aimless Amos

Can you communicate without electricity? In this activity, students explore a problem in which a school’s power has gone out and they need to deliver an important message to a neighboring first grade classroom. However, they must stay within the following constraints: they cannot use cell phones and they have to stay in their classroom while doing so. Students research and use a variety of tools and materials to build, test, and retest a device that communicates sound the most clearly while learning about and demonstrating how sound causes vibrations.
This engineering curriculum aligns to Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).

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Music:

Civil engineers design structures such as buildings, dams, highways and bridges. Student teams explore the field of engineering by making bridges using spaghetti as their primary building material. Then they test their bridges to see how much weight they can carry before breaking.

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https://www.teachengineering.o....rg/activities/view/w

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Music: Undeniable - Vibe Tracks

Students learn more about assistive devices, specifically biomedical engineering applied to computer engineering concepts, with an engineering challenge to create an automatic floor cleaner computer program. Following the steps of the design process, they design computer programs and test them by programming a simulated robot vacuum cleaner (a LEGO robot) to move in designated patterns. Successful programs meet all the design requirements.

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Music: Feel Good Rock - Audionautix

Student groups are provided with a generic car base on which to design a device/enclosure to protect an egg as it rolls down a ramp at increasing slopes. During this in-depth physics-science-technology-math activity, student teams design, build and test their prototype creations to meet the design challenge, and then perform basic mathematical calculations using collected data, including a summative cost-benefit ratio. The activity has great potential to build on with additional physics and math explorations. Many student handouts are provided.
This engineering curriculum aligns to Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).

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https://www.teachengineering.o....rg/activities/view/s

TeachEngineering has over 1,500 FREE lessons and activities. Visit https://www.teachengineering.org/ for more

Music: California Wind - Bruno E

Students use their creative skills to determine a way to safely mail raw (dry, uncooked) spaghetti using only the provided materials. To test the packing designs, the spaghetti is mailed through the postal system and evaluated after delivery.

View the full activity on TeachEngineering: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP2KF1HWXZQ&t=7s

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Music: Italian Afternoon - Twin Musicom
Italian Afternoon by Twin Musicom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Artist: http://www.twinmusicom.org/

Students take the concept of etch-a-sketch a step further. Using iron filings, they begin visualizing magnetic field lines. To do so, they use a compass to read the direction of the magnet's magnetic field. Then, as they rotate the filings about the magnet, they observe the behavior of iron filings near the magnet. Finally, students study the behavior of iron filings suspended in mineral oil, which displays the magnetic field in three dimensions.

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TeachEngineering has over 1,500 FREE lessons and activities. Visit https://www.teachengineering.org/ for more

Music - Bicycle Reunited by Kevin MacLeod

Towers have been a part of developed society for centuries, serving a variety of purposes, from watch towers to modern cell towers. In this activity, student groups design and build three types of towers (guyed or cable-supported, free-standing or self-standing, and monopole), engineering them to meet the requirements that they hold an egg one foot high for 15 seconds.

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Music: Life of Riley - Kevin MacLeod

Life of Riley by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Source: http://incompetech.com/music/r....oyalty-free/index.ht
Artist: http://incompetech.com/

Students learn about engineering applications in artistic venues by designing and creating eye masks that each contain three LEDs. They explore parallel circuits with their LEDs, and sew with conductive thread to create light-up displays on their masks, gaining hands-on experience in using engineering technologies as well as custom product design and assembly.


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Music: Moose - bensound.com

Student groups rotate through four stations to examine light energy behavior: refraction, magnification, prisms and polarization. They see how a beam of light is refracted (bent) through various transparent mediums. While learning how a magnifying glass works, students see how the orientation of an image changes with the distance of the lens from its focal point. They also discover how a prism works by refracting light and making rainbows. And, students investigate the polar nature of light using sunglasses and polarized light film.

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Music: Side Steppin

In the everyday electrical devices we use — calculators, remote controls and cell phones — a voltage source such as a battery is required to close the circuit and operate the device. In this hands-on activity, students use batteries, wires, small light bulbs and light bulb holders to learn the difference between an open circuit and a closed circuit, and understand that electric current only occurs in a closed circuit.

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https://www.teachengineering.o....rg/activities/view/c

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Music: Cosmos - Silent Partnet

What do enzymes and engineering have in common? As a catalyst that creates a chemical reaction, enzymes are a unique substance that chemical engineers can learn from to create their own unique chemical designs. In this lesson, students learn about enzymes, study how enzymes work in our digestive system, and discuss enzymes are used in laundry detergents. Students relate to the idea that enzymes digest the food in the human body, and that enzymes can also be used to digest food stains on clothing.

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Students investigate how mountains are formed. Concepts include the composition and structure of the Earth's tectonic plates and tectonic plate boundaries, with an emphasis on plate convergence as it relates to mountain formation. Students learn that geotechnical engineers design technologies to measure movement of tectonic plates and mountain formation, as well as design to alter the mountain environment to create safe and dependable roadways and tunnels.

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https://www.teachengineering.o....rg/lessons/view/cub_

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Students use the associated activity to learn about atoms and their structure (protons, electrons, neutrons) — the building blocks of matter. They see how scientific discoveries about atoms and molecules influence new technologies developed by engineers.

View the full lesson on TeachEngineering: https://www.teachengineering.o....rg/lessons/view/cub_

TeachEngineering has over 1,500 FREE lessons and activities. Visit https://www.teachengineering.org/ for more