Alex, Erik, and Jared are back again to give you more helpful hints on this year’s Middle School Challenge. To recap the last time we heard from them, they helped define the customer for our upcoming cable car project. Today the group wants to share with you what type of materials they are using to please the customer, which may look a little different than the materials you may end up using. They also encourage you to be more efficient by planning your materials and budget ahead of time. The team is here to break it all down for you.
Alex is here to talk to you about a budget and schedule. Both are an important part of the engineering process. The video even shows you the team’s timeline for their own cable car. We may not have the same timeline the group does but time management is an important factor in this project. What do you think will be the first item on your schedule? How long should it take you?
Jared is helpful in breaking down what materials you may come across in your project. He elaborates on where you can get these various supplies. Don’t worry we do have most of the supplies for you, but what supplies do you think you will need? Where do you think is the best place to purchase those supplies? Feel free to share your answers in our comment section.
As our team member Alex had said last week research is an important part of the engineering process. We wanted to help you out with this process. Cable cars can be seen in a variety of shapes and sizes but also in plenty of places around the world. We wanted to show you an example of some of the varieties of cable cars to help inspire you.
San Francisco is one of the few places in the United States to still have a cable car with an underground wire. The cable car museum shows you the many components that are used to make this possible.
New York has a long history of various types of cable cars. Their Transit Museum website breaks down the differences between their various types of transportation. Keep track of the differences because there will be important for your design.
Most of these cars are fixed onto the cable and the cables move. However, there are cars that move on a fixed cable. The differences can be confusing but look out for them in this video of a cable can on the West Cost Trail in Canada.
Hopefully these websites allowed you to answer some important questions. After looking at our research and doing some on your own you should be able to understand the difference between the different cable cars, how people go from concept to reality while making a cable car, and how various cable cars work. We encourage you to expand on this research and try to figure out what your customer may be as a cable car company. Earlier this week Erik talked about design being not only important to customers but to the function of your cable car. What design factors might make your car most efficient? Happy researching!
Last year (2013-14) at our Middle School Challenge we had our students make a Rube Goldberg project. A Rube Goldberg machine is one where coordinated parts work together to accomplish a task (such as wiping your mouth) without human intervention during any part except the start. Our team from last year made their machine take a picture with a camera. Their weekly videos are posted here on the blog. By watching these videos you should be able to apply them to your cable car. We encourage you to check it out!
Welcome middle school students and teachers! Here at SMILE we hope your are excited about this year’s mechanical engineering challenge. For the last three months the team here at SMILE has been working with a group of mechanical engineering students to create your challenge. We want you to design a cable car! Sounds fun right? To help you complete the project, each week here on the blog our team of mechanical engineering students will be posting videos of their own cable car project along with helpful hints on how to make your own cable car. Next week’s post will give you more details about your cable car challenge, but first we want you to meet your team of mechanical engineer students who will help you through this process. Keep checking the blog weekly for more updates and videos!
Meet Alex:
Alex is one of our mechanical engineering students who cannot wait to post videos every week! He tells us why mechanical engineering is an awesome field with many career options. Alex also explains doing research and planning before getting started on your project may help be more successful. Here are some videos we recommend to get the brain juices flowing:
Meet Jared:
Jared knows how to crack some jokes, but he is also skillful at decoding some important engineering terms. Who is your customer for your cable car? That is an excellent question! Jared breaks down some of the requirements for the project you will be working on.
Meet Erik:
Erik loves design and build things with his hands and you can tell by his amazing wood working projects he shows off in his video. Design incorporates research and the customer as well as safety. These will all play important factors in how your final project performs.
A final word from the team:
Your mechanical engineering team is excited to work with you! They give some great tips on how to work as a team, which will be important when you work with your team on your new project. Listen carefully because they can help your project run more efficiently!
Each year the SMILE program sponsors a Mechanical Engineering (ME) Senior Project, in which three ME students work with the SMILE program to engineer and build a engaging, educational machine that can be shared with middle school students all over Oregon.
Last year, we had a great team who bravely chose to take on this challenge. The team built a fully-functional Rube Goldberg machine that coordinated with the middle school SMILE clubs using videos about the planning and building process. The machine travelled to middle school challenge days around Oregon and students got the opportunity to interact with the machine.
This year, we are excited to work with a new group of ME students and provide new activities for our middle school students! It is our hope that your students will gain knowledge of the engineering and design process, and ultimately plan and build a machine. We also plan to have SMILE students interact remotely with our ME students as they go through their own planning and building process over the coming months. The ME students will be designing and constructing a cable machine that can be used to teach physical science concepts. SMILE students will similarly construct a motorized machine that can perform a specified task (more details to come soon). Then, at the regional Middle School Challenges in the spring, SMILE students will have an opportunity to share their machines, as well as interact with the ME students’ machine.
At the top of this page, you will notice there is a link to a page called “Mechanical Engineering Project.” We will be posting the videos from the ME students on this page, as well as small updates about their progress once they begin building. The page currently features the videos and information from last year’s ME project, and this year’s process overall will be very similar. We plan to feature questions and feedback from the middle school students for the ME students to answer in their videos and to help aid in the middle school students’ building process and make the experience more interactive.
Stay tuned for more information on this year’s project. Happy Engineering!
