CANFIELD, Ohio – The initial assignment during America Makes’ National Manufacturing Day program at the Mahoning Valley Career & Technical Center was for teams of students to build the tallest paper tower they could in five minutes using a single sheet of paper.
The result was something Sally Creel, chief learning officer at Innovate Learning, an educational consulting company working with America Makes, said she hadn’t seen done during similar programs previously. When the question was raised whether the teams were restricted to using the paper or could employ outside elements, the group voted to permit the latter.
That prompted several of the teams to stack the chairs at their table – Creel drew the line at permitting them to be stacked on the tables themselves – to varying degrees of stability, and attaching the paper tower each had made to the top.
“Two points for creativity; zero points for safety,” she remarked.
“That’s what I love about working with students, is they’re going to surprise you,” she added. In engineering, people need to stay within constraints, with safety rules and regulations that need to be obeyed.
She acknowledged the students had taken “some creative liberties” with the assignment, but it did reflect the intent of the exercise, which was part of the 3D Printing for Drones design, build and fly experience taking place Friday in MCCTC’s new Leadership Employment Advancement Discovery – or LEAD – Center.
About 30 freshmen students at MCCTC’s Valley STEM Academy participated in the America Makes program, one of several National Manufacturing Day events taking place at the school. The Valley STEM students were split into two groups, one of which would participate in the design program while the other group would learn how to pilot drones in the “drone cage,” before switching.
“What we are doing today is introducing students to the engineering design process,” Creel said. “We’re engaging that creative thought of how do we think outside the box, and that’s a lot of what we want students to be doing in the next generation of manufacturers. We don’t want them to be creating the same old thing. We’re going to need new ideas, new skills and new ways of thinking.”
The MCCTC event was part of a larger America Makes initiative taking place simultaneously at sites in Pennsylvania, Texas, Alabama and California as part of National Manufacturing Day.
“We’re looking at introducing them to manufacturing because manufacturing is everywhere,” said Courtney Puhl, deputy director of education and workforce development for America Makes.
“So what we want to do is let them understand what it takes to manufacture something, and that’s why we’re starting with the engineering design cycle, because you don’t just manufacture something; you have to have that idea first.
“What we’re doing here in this lab is teaching them the iterative process of engineering, where you start with an idea, and use your constraints to design something that’s going to work,” she continued. “As part of the process, they will reflect on what did work and what did not, revise their designs and try again.”
As part of the program, students participated in a simulated disaster response exercise to gather supplies, including personal protective equipment, that had been scattered by a tornado. Their assignment was to design a device, using various household items such as pipe cleaners, yarn, straws, zip ties and rubber bands – that would attach to a drone that could be used to gather pyramids representing the supplies, the goal being to gather as many as they could.
“They’re going to come up with an idea and they’re going to learn how to take that idea from something that’s in their brain to creating a physical prototype,” Creel said.
The drone’s capacity for lifting was 30 grams, Creel said. The pyramids themselves weighed eight grams.
“Think about what you might want to build, knowing what you have to pick up, how much it weighs,” she advised.
Students later were being shown what other students participating in the program previously developed using 3D-printing technology. “W’ere going to let them evaluate those 3D-printed designs and compare it to what they designed – see which is good, what would they have done differently,” she said.
Students participating in the program enjoyed the experience.
“I feel like it will help me with manufacturing and also engineering because you’re learning how to build different things and fly stuff,” Kevin Robinson of Youngstown said.
“I’m definitely learning new things and how to be more creative,” Allianna Nuttle of Canfield said. The exercise helped her to learn to work with “people that you may not know,” she added.
Emmett Martin of Struthers looked forward to the experience of learning something and having fun at the same time. Teamwork was also a part of the experience that he cited.
Pictured at top: From left are Hudson Phillips, Elias Stiles-Knepper, Sally Creel of Innovate Learning, Kevin Robinson and Deven Jones.
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Source: businessjournaldaily.com
