Designing Solutions in Engineering

Hand with pen, sketching bridge designs in a notebook

Before viewing the interview with engineering instructor Tim Grebner, the following teacher-colleague activity is designed to engage you in the practice of designing solutions.

Overview

Engineering is an iterative, systematic approach to designing solutions to meet human needs and wants. The products of engineering are called “technology”.

The fields of science and engineering are mutually supportive. New technologies expand the reach of science, allowing the study of realms previously inaccessible to investigation. Engineers in turn depend on the work of scientists to help them create new technologies and to understand how a particular technology works so it can be improved.

Students can learn and affirm science concepts through engineering as well as learn engineering concepts through science. The Minnesota Academic Standards in Science (2009) provide for multiple experiences in engineering within the K-12 Nature of Science and Engineering strand.

The goal of this activity is to deconstruct (reverse engineer) a simple technology and design possible solutions to improve it.

Materials

A retractable ballpoint pen – one for each participant
Notebook for flowcharts and designing solutions

Teacher-Colleague Activity

Procedure

With a partner, each of you will deconstruct a standard ballpoint pen. Take the pens apart. Lay the components out on the table.

Label the parts. (Have some fun making up names. Note that the ink chamber or ink tube is made of multiple parts.)
Compare the parts and design of the two pens. How are they the same? How do they differ?
In your notebook, draw a simple flowchart that would show another person how to put the pen back together. (Optional: Have other teams try to reassemble a pen based on its flowchart.)

Designing Solutions

Work with your partner to brainstorm how you could redesign the standard ballpoint pen to:

Work in micro-gravity, e.g., on the International Space Station.
Work underwater when used by a diver in SCUBA gear.
Not “explode” when in a shirt/pants pocket in warm conditions.
Write on paper and as a stylus for use on a computer screen.

Sketch out your ideas and designs, then share them with the group. If you wish, you could assign each challenge to different teams.

Discussion

What are some of the skills needed to be an engineer?
Why do we teach engineering in K-12 science?
Engineering challenges you provide for your students should reinforce content standards addressed in your curriculum. That said, could/should you use this reverse engineering of a pen activity in your curriculum? Why or why not?
If you did use this activity with your students, how would it fit into your curriculum? What would be the science concepts applied or reinforced by asking students to do this?

Take Two minutes for a quick evaluation of today’s session: Module 3 Session 7B Survey

Facilitator Note

When you complete this engineering activity and discussion, continue with the Engineer Video in Session 7C.