I'm not good with goodbyes, so I'll just spit it out: this is my last post of the year. This academic year has had its ups and downs, but I certainly continue to learn a lot about teaching, about high school students, and about engaging non-technical audiences in interesting topics related to technical things. In my last two days I had the opportunity to do a design activity, which was bridge building out of candy (the same activity that I did with the students at the Expo in December), and I had a while to talk about my research on vehicle design optimization. These both went really well, and it was a great way to close out the year in these classes.
Last week I did the bridge building activity in the second and third hour classes. Since it was a short day, fourth and sixth hours didn't exist, so I suppose they missed out. I started with a brief slideshow talking about bridges with examples of good design and bad design, and showing them what a truss (triangular structure) is and why they are stronger than square structures. From here I gave them their task: to design and build a bridge (in teams of 3) using only gum drops and toothpicks which would span 11 inches. Ms. Tran helped them out by telling them that their participation would be graded, and winning any of the four awards would give them extra credit on their progress reports coming out the next day. The class was shorter than the activity was designed for, so we only had about 25-30 minutes to design, build, and test. I gave the students 5 minutes to just plan their designs and sketch them out before I even gave them the materials, and then they had about 15 minutes to build. Particularly in the first class, we were extremely pressed on time, and with less than 5 minutes left it was clear that they wouldn't finish, so I changed it from 11 to 6 inches. It turned out that 6 inches was way too easy! The students' bridges withstood all the pennies (weights) that I brought and even went through most of Ms. Tran's change. They did a nice job though, even though we ran out of time during testing. In third hour we were able to get through everything, this time with 8 inch bridges. For the most part, the students got very into this activity, and the group sizes of 3 were good to make sure everyone was able to contribute. I'd do this again.
Today I wanted to finally talk about my research, since I haven't directly shared it with the students yet. I started out by telling them that when I'm not in their classroom, I'm at U of M working on computers running simulations and analyzing data for my research. I used this opportunity to remind them that as a graduate student I'm getting paid to do this research, so it's sort of like a real job. I started out with some videos of the crash and blast simulations that I've been running, just to give them something interesting to look at and grab their attention. I then introduced the phrase "design optimization" and asked them to define it. I'm still surprised at how few students know the term "optimal" or "optimize", but there was always some student that could give us the gist. I then asked what the "optimal" or "best" car would be? Is it the safest car? most fuel efficient? best looking? least costly? fastest? The students often replied that it should be all five, but I suggested that this isn't the case and cited examples of vehicles that are among the best in certain categories, but seriously lacking in others. Next I explained that in order to evaluate cars on these criteria, we have to be able to quantify each of the objectives, and I gave the example that we quantify fuel efficiency using miles-per-gallon (mpg), but in other places they use gallons per mile or liters per kilometer. Next I actually gave them some time to think about how to quantify the other four objectives, and asked them to talk in pairs about them. Most students seemed to actually spend the minute or two that I gave them to discuss this (which I considered a huge success), and in the end they were able to give some good ideas on how to quantify these things. I explained in the end that this is the most important and perhaps hardest part: formulating problems mathematically with numbers. I then continued to talk broadly about some of my research in both the commercial vehicle sector and military vehicle design, discussing the problems as well as some of the things that I've found in my studies. I closed out and asked if they had any final questions for me.
One of my challenges with this talk was in keeping it simple enough for the students to understand and follow, yet still showing something meaningful. In the end I showed less meaningful things, but brought up some interesting discussion topics that the students were able to participate in. I think the think-pair-share activity was useful in that it gave those who were interested an opportunity to think about the questions I posed, and we got more participation this way than normally. Second hour was very receptive in general, and one of the students asked what he should do if he wants to get into vehicle design for a career - I think he was already interested in this area, but my presence might have strengthened that interest, which I consider a success. Third and fourth hours were slightly less engaged in the latter part of the presentation where I discussed my research, but they were still polite and receptive to me. Sixth hour, as usual, was rowdy but respectful, and many of the students contributed to the discussion and asked questions. All in all, I think this was a great way to close out the year, which lets me leave with a fairly positive attitude toward my students and my contributions at YHS. Thank you to everyone who made this experience possible!
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