February first I introduced my “Kenan” inspired elective to sixteen eager students. We met and discussed the value of testing things for safety. Based on my internship at UL (Underwriter’s Laboratory) I learned about water safety as I saw UL test full immersion suits and life jackets. Spending a lot of time with wireless technology testing helped me see the value of the standards associated with wireless technology. I also witnessed testing being done on many fire protective equipment. In our elective we discussed the need to look at catastrophes as opportunities to make improvements and redesign failed products. The first area we decided to investigate was the history of the Titanic. We read about the communication system, the kids did an activity deciding how they might redesign a communication tool today that could be understood across the barriers of language but the need for an internationally recognized signal. Within their collaborative groups they imagined a variety of new communication tools. One group decided to use sonar to send a signal long distances, one group decided light and sound signals would be useful and the third group chose to use wireless but created a new set of signals.
Our next challenge was to create lifeboats from aluminum foil that would hold 30 (people) marbles for one minute. Watching the teams research buoyancy and boat shapes they drew some of thier ideas. The first group put all the marbles in the aluminum foil and created a ball of marbles, telling me that they knew the aluminum foil would float. This “boat” sank to bottom of the bucket at break neck speed. The other groups each created boats, one with a hole in the bottom took on water very quickly and the third had very shallow sides so the weight of the marbles caused the boat to get lower into the water and take on water ultimately sinking before all thirty passengers were aboard. It has been so fun to guide the discussions and watch the evolution of the thinking process among my sixteen young engineers work together to solve problems.
