5/4 talks

Ms. Tran was out today, and we had a substitute teacher in the class. I still came in to give my talk, and after the talk the students watched the beginning of the movie "Stand and Deliver." I basically swapped two of the successful talks from previous weeks to the classes that had not heard them yet, so I gave the shoe talk to the Geometry classes and the explosives talk to the Algebra classes. First and second hour went very well. The students were respectful and engaged in hearing about the running shoe that my team built last year to power an iPod. Third hour is always more talkative because it's later in the day, and while they were talkative, most of them seemed interested in the talk and we got through it without much trouble.

Fifth hour (the students who are re-taking Algebra I) was a different story, and it has really become frustrating for me. I showed a video of a land mine exploding in Iraq (which was extremely successful at drawing the attention of the geometry classes), and it got the attention of a few of the guys in the class, and we talked about the research I did on explosives back at Maryland. Despite everything I tried to get their attention, there were always about 5 side conversations going on throughout the talk. These students seem to simply not care about how incredibly rude and disrespectful they are being. One student who was actively involved in a side conversation started to butt into my talk with a "question" - while I normally welcome questions, I was really bothered by her disrespect and told her that it was very rude of her to do that. As usual, she started to give excuses and claim innocence, which really just shows me how little some students understand about respect and manners. I have tried so hard with this class and sometimes it feels impossible. I don't know what I can do in the two days I have left to make a positive impact on these students, but I will think more about it once I've cooled off from this incident. Anyway, I pressed through the talk and focused on the 4 or 5 students who were actually interested in what I was talking about, and then turned them over to the sub and the movie.

Flying and Running

Today I came in with a talk for each of my classes. The geometry talk was about flight (airplanes, blimps, helicopters), inspired by the importance of angle of attack in wing positioning, and the fact that one of the students previously had asked about airplanes. I opened as usual by asking the basic questions: Why do we want to fly? How do blimps work? How do planes work? How much lift (upward force) do we need? How do helicopters work? The students were very attentive and many of them had some good intuition as to how these machines function. In first hour, I opened with a video of early attempts at flight, which had some funny shots of crazy almost-working flying machines. This did a decent job at grabbing their attention, and they stayed engaged throughout (which is unusual for first hour since they often seem to not be awake). In second hour I didn't have a projector, so I decided to wing it and give the talk using the whiteboard instead. Though we didn't get the video, this actually worked very well. The class was attentive and I had more participation than usual. In third hour I used a hybrid of these techniques, using the video and powerpoint for most of it, but throwing in the whiteboard for one of the concepts. This went fairly well, but they were definitely more energetic and talkative than the other classes, which led to distracting side conversations. One of the students said "that was an interesting topic" at the end, so I at least met that goal for some of the students.

I mentioned to all of my geometry classes that I only have three more weeks in their classroom, and I encouraged them to take advantage of my last four days and ask me good questions. I mentioned in second hour that I won't be here for their last week of school because I'm going to a conference in Portugal, which got them excited since they knew I had gone to Korea back in December. I said something to the effect that it's great because I don't have to pay for any of these trips, which actually got some people to ask why I am going to these places and how many more years they would need to get to where I am. This gave me an opportunity to talk more about engineering and grad school in an environment where they were already interested, which was great.

In fifth hour I brought in a brief discussion on a project I did last year (which I talked about last year in Mr. Lancaster's class) where we designed a shoe that captures energy from running to charge an iPod or other portable electronic device. The talk was very brief (5 slides including a title slide), and the title slide introduced the question "Can running charge your iPod?". The other slides discussed where we get our energy from, and potential sources of "free" energy (sun, geothermal, hydro, wind, human movement), which showed the motivation for the product. I then introduced them to the shoe and brought out and passed around the prototype, and then I asked what questions they had. Fifth hour has always been the toughest audience, but the majority of the students seemed genuinely interested and there were a couple of good questions at the end, and I think the brevity of the formal talk (powerpoint) contributed to that. Ms. Tran really liked it and asked me to talk about this project with the geometry classes next time. I was very pleased with both of these discussions.

Four more vehicle-related talks...

Over the last three weeks, I have given two talks each to the geometry classes and to the algebra class. In the geometry classes I first brought in a discussion about the research I did on explosives two years ago as an undergraduate. I began with a short video clip of a land mine exploding on a road in Iraq, which really caught their attention better than I've been able to all year. All three of the classes were fully engaged and listening throughout the presentation. I began by discussing Humvee safety and how the vehicles and occupants would be affected by land mines, and then asked the students how we could learn about the effects of land mines on Humvees. This eventually led us to the idea of scaled-down tests, which fits in nicely with their recent unit on proportions and ratios. From there, I discussed the scaled-down explosive testing I did in Maryland and we calculated how it was scaled down proportionally. The students were very attentive and I was very pleased with how it went.

The second talk I gave was today, and I first went through the MITE recruitment presentation to discuss the summer program and encourage them to think about it and apply. I skipped a lot of the details on the different fields of engineering because I didn't want to lose them, but in 3rd hour they asked several questions about the engineering types, so some of them were clearly interested. I passed out handouts with the website for those who were still interested. After I finished this, I went into a powerpoint that I prepared about how cars turn (handling). Following last week's success, I began with a video of a car spinning out, which caught their attention fairly well. We then discussed why a vehicle might spin out (and they all were able to come up with a lot of good answers before I said anything), and discussed the geometry of a turning car. We talked about the angles that the wheels are turning, and then the angles that the tires might be slipping against the road. I think today's talks went very well.

The algebra classes have been a different story. Two weeks ago I gave a talk on hybrid and electric vehicles, based on the interest they showed in the first week, and last week I brought in a discussion on the Michigan Solar Car team project. For both of these talks, I wanted to go through some of the math and science behind the vehicles. The first one went okay, and we calculated the difference in emissions between an all-electric Tesla Roadster and a Toyota Corolla and found that the Tesla has slightly lower emissions. I then showed them how to calculate what type of efficiency we'd need in a conventional car to equal the emissions of the Roadster, and it turned out to be around 42 mpg. We mentioned that a Prius gets higher mileage than this, so a Prius would actually be better on the environment that a Roadster (specifically with the power generation distribution in Michigan). I thought this was very interesting, and some of the students followed, but it was frustrating trying to get through the talk because there are still a lot of distractions and interruptions and overall rudeness. In the talk on the solar car, we did a calculation of how much solar panel area a normal car (Ford Taurus) would need to get the same power it has, and it turned out to be over 100 times the area it has. This actually explained a question that someone had in one of the previous lectures, when someone asked why we don't have solar-powered cars. Very few of the students seemed to listen to this talk, but in both talks they had a lot of questions at the end (some of which I had already answered during the presentation had they been listening). This frustrates me, but it also challenges me to think of ways to prepare better talks for my particular audience.

Today I did not prepare a talk for fifth hour, but they had an in-class problem set to work on, and I walked around to provide help where possible. There was an incident that sticks out in my mind where I heard a student say "I don't understand this", so I went over and asked her which problem she was having trouble with. She replied "I don't need help," and I said that I heard her say that she didn't understand something, and I am here to help with that type of problem. There may have been another exchange with her refusing help, and then she replied with "I don't want YOUR help. You don't even know me." I responded to her, saying "I don't understand why you are so rude to me," and calmly walked away. This really bothers me, because I really can't see why a student would be so rude to me, when I have shown her as much respect as possible. I guess I'll have to try again next time.

First Talks of YHS Second Term

For the last couple of weeks I did not prepare presentations, but sat on the lessons and walked around afterward to help with homework problems. I have also been trying more to learn the students' names, so it has been a good time for me to practice in my head with the seating chart to learn these. The first three hours are the same as they were last term, but since the semester change we have gotten a new fifth-hour class. This class is for students re-taking the first half of Algebra I, and they have a similar personality and mindset of last term's fifth-hour class, which was re-taking the second half of Geometry. A lot of them lack confidence in math, and they tend to get distracted easily. I hope through my individual attention, I can help many of them boost their confidence and realize their potential to do math.

This week I wanted to bring in another discussion to get them thinking about applications again, and a separate talk to formally introduce myself to the fifth-hour students. For the Geometry classes, I prepared a follow-up talk on roller coasters to remind them about what we discussed last time (the strength of triangles/trusses in structures) and bring in some new perspective. They have spent a lot of time recently learning about properties of angles and triangles, so my goal was to show them how angles can be applicable to design. I showed them a picture of the Millennium Force at Cedar Point, and zoomed into one of the truss structures that made a right triangle. In a very basic demonstration of the statics analysis, I mentioned that the weight of everything above the triangle would be coming downward onto the top joint, and we agreed that it would propagate downward through the beams. We then discussed how it would change if the angle were expanded or contracted, and concluded that it is important for engineers to take angle measurements into account to ensure the safety of such a design. I then brought up a larger truss structure and we discussed which angles were congruent (using theorems from geometry), and I mentioned why these congruent angles are useful for analyzing the structure. I brought up the idea of trigonometry and mentioned that it was useful for this type of analysis, but since they haven't learned trig yet, that might have brought about more confusion than my intention of whetting their appetite for trig. Overall, I think this discussion went very well in 2nd and 3rd hours, but 1st hour was still very quiet (and not quite awake yet).

Fifth hour went fairly well, and I used a powerpoint that I gave last term for introducing myself and briefly explaining who I am, where I'm from, and what I do. When I introduced engineering, I had a few pictures of things that are heavily influenced by mechanical engineering design, including one of a Tesla Roadster, which I explained was an electric car. This actually spurred a lot of questions from the group, and many of them were curious as to how it works, how you charge it, and the practicalities of an electric car. I was impressed with their ability to immediately identify the weaknesses of electric cars, and explained that these are the reasons why we don't see a lot of them on the road. However, I was disappointed with the way they asked the questions - many of them would try to ask questions at the same time, and they didn't listen to my responses, so I got the same questions again and again. They seemed to think that I have first hand experience with these and know every detail about their maintenance and performance, but I unfortunately had to break the news to them that I don't have $100,000 to spend on a car. Since this topic seems interesting to them, I will try to bring in a discussion centered on electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles, incorporating algebra as something that designers need to use.

Beginning of 2009

Last week I returned to Ypsilanti High School after their two-week winter break. I had prepared a talk about a project I did last term, but Ms. Tran hadn't planned for me to speak, so instead I helped out with the in-class review problem sets. Since I found out I would be here in the Spring semester, I asked Ms. Tran for a copy of the seating charts so that I could better learn the students' names, so I spent some time studying those and starting to put some names to the faces I've already become familiar with over the last few months. I had varied success working with the students on the problem sets. First hour was very quiet and I only had one person ask me a question, despite my walking around the room and specifically asking everyone if they needed help or had questions. In second and third hour there was a lot more questions and talking in general, so I felt more useful. This seems to be a trend, and I know it is hard to wake first hour up, but I don't quite know how to get them more into the class. Fifth hour was also tough - the same two students that didn't do the work last time also refused to do their work this time and instead chatted the entire time. When I try to address this with them, they simply ignore me, which is very frustrating for me. The other students all at least started the assignment, and many of them asked me for help.

Today I was able to give the talk I had prepared for last week, so I talked about a class I took last term - Global Product Development. I had gone to Korea as a part of this class and had to miss them for two weeks in December, and since many of them asked how my trip was when I returned, I thought it would be appropriate to fill them in. I started out by talking about Korea and asked them what they knew about the country, and then I introduced the course to them, discussing the goal to develop products in a global setting. The objective of the class was to develop products for third-world countries, so we also discussed what that meant, and what the needs of people in these countries are. I then talked about the project that my team did, and showed them a couple of videos of my project and some of my adventures in Seoul. In first hour, Ms. Tran left for most of the talk, and there was a slight distraction when one of the students opened a bag of chips and another student walked across the room to ask for some. I told him that it was very rude of him, but I didn't want to let him interrupt any more than he already had, so I pushed on through it and continued the talk. One of the videos I showed was of a meal I had in which there was live octopus, which I thought was really cool, but it turned out to be a little too distracting for second hour, and all of their questions were about the octopus rather than the class or the project. Third hour went very well, and most of the students were engaged in the discussion and asked relevant questions. I attribute this to both them being more awake and myself being more familiar with the material after already having run through it twice. Fifth hour was surprisingly very respectful and engaged - since this class is the second half of the regular geometry for students who had to retake it, they will not return for the spring semester and therefore this was my last talk with them. I told them that at the beginning, and perhaps because of that they paid attention and had minimal interruptions during my talk, and they asked good questions at the end. It was a great note to end on with them, and I'm happy with how it went. I look forward to starting the new semester with these students in two weeks.

End of Fall

So I have been a bit remiss in my blogging updates, so I will try to catch up right now. I have given two more talks since my last post, and they have centered on examples that demonstrate geometric concepts seen in everyday designs. The students were assigned an end-of-term project that involved creating a "winter-themed" holiday ornament to hang from the ceiling of the classroom, and for the project they had to discuss ten geometric concepts that are evident in their ornaments. So, my talks were about some interesting design projects that I am familiar with, and at the end we listed and discussed at least 10 concepts from geometry that we could tie in.

The first of these talks discussed Humvees, which is a familiar topic that most of the students could understand. I opened up by talking about the characteristics of a Hummer, the commercial version of the military Humvee, and they all seemed to be familiar with the vehicle and many of them mentioned its low fuel economy. I then moved the discussion to the original military vehicle, the Humvee, and discussed its purposes and some of the considerations that designers must take into account. From here, I was able to transition into some research that I did as an undergraduate, of which the aim was to design for safety against buried land mines. The research I did involved experimenting with explosives, which seemed to catch the interest of a lot of the students, and I was able to even talk a little bit about my results without all of them losing interest. After this, I then asked them where they saw geometry in the Humvee, and they were able to come up with most of what I had thought of on their own, which was encouraging. The fifth hour class, as usual, was a little less attentive on the whole, but there was one student in the front who actively participated this time (who normally does not), which was nice.

The second talk was about the Solar Decathlon project that many of my peers at the University of Maryland participated in. This is a project where teams of university students work together to design and build a completely solar-powered house, and they compete against other universities in ten different categories. I began this talk by going back and referencing a previous talk I gave that discussed wind turbines as an alternative source of energy. I then asked what the other big source of renewable energy was, and most of the classes were able to come up with solar as the source. From here, we talked about the technologies that currently help us to harness solar energy, mainly through photovoltaic (PV) cells and rooftop water heating, and I introduced the project. I stressed the interdisciplinary nature of this project and discussed all of the university departments at Maryland that were involved, since I know not all of the students want to be engineers. This was interesting for them, and I got a lot of questions about the technology and the Solar Decathlon in general. As with the previous discussion, I ended by asking the students where they see concepts from geometry in the solar house, and they were able to easily come up with ten concepts.

I had been under the impression that I would only be with Ms. Tran's classes for the Fall term, and these would be some of my last discussions with the class; however, soon after the talk about the Solar Decathlon I was informed that I would be working with Ms. Tran's class for the entire year. I decided that if this is the case, I should try to get to know the students better, so my last class periods were spent helping the students on an individual-by-individual basis with their practice quizzes and homework assignments. I enjoyed this, and I think the students appreciated my help. Many of them are reluctant to raise their hands, but when I come around they will ask questions. Still more are reluctant to even attempt their homework without me standing over their shoulder and telling them that what they are doing is correct - this is a habit that I intend to break during the course of next term. The fifth-hour students responded fairly well to this, and most of them got through the assignment with the exception of three guys who refused to even look at the questions. I will continue to push them through the next couple of weeks in January, but unfortunately the fifth-hour students will not be back with Ms. Tran when they start their new semester, so I won't have much more time to work with them.

Overall, I think this was a successful semester. I feel like I got a good start as I presented the students with some interesting topics and showed them some of examples of what engineering is; however, it may have been beneficial to get involved with them on a more personal basis earlier. Next term I will try to strike a better balance between engaging them with discussions and assisting them with their individual coursework assignments.

Decimals and Transformations

I have been very pleased with the last two discussions that I've led. Last time I came in with a presentation that introduced the concept of tolerance in measurements. We started out by discussing significant figures and why we sometimes write 90.0 instead of 90 when specifying a degree measurement. I explained to them that it is more specific to say 90.0, because that covers a small range from 89.95 to 90.05 whereas saying 90 covers the larger range of 89.5 to 90.5. We all agreed that a lower tolerance (higher accuracy) will result in a higher-quality product, but a higher tolerance will be cheaper. We then discussed the purpose of tolerance and how we can never produce something with 100% accuracy. To end the discussion, I gave some examples of things that might be designed, and we talked about whether we'd want a high or a low tolerance in their designs. While this didn't pertain specifically to the curriculum, I think it added something to their understanding of why we use decimals sometimes. The classes were engaged, and I think they are still interested in the things I have to say.

Since I had some serious problems with the fifth hour class in the past, I started out in that class by reminding them why I'm there. I just wanted them to realize that I'm taking time and making an effort to talk to them about interesting things, and I let them know that I'm open to feedback. That was fairly successful, and they were respectful and mostly attentive for the entire talk.

Today I came in with a talk that supplemented last week's class lesson on rotations and next week's curriculum on transformations. The discussion centered on electricity generation, which is something that I really enjoy talking about. The talk was a little bit longer than I had planned, and a lot more of the focus was on electricity generation and renewable power; although this isn't the main goal of the class, I think it's educational and the students were attentive and interested. So I introduced electricity and talked about the different sources and their pros and cons (fossil fuel causing air pollution, nuclear power creating radioactive waste, and renewable versus nonrenewable sources). We then got into a discussion on wind turbines and how turbines work. I had a 3D CAD drawing of a wind farm, and we discussed how that drawing would be built - the main take-home was that you can save a lot of time by using rotations and translations to create an accurate and robust CAD model. I ended by asking an open-ended question about where else in design we might use transformations, and got some good responses.

Overall, this went much better than I had expected. Because energy is such a hot field right now, the students understood its applicability to their lives, and there were lots of questions in each class. As usual, third hour was the most engaged, and I think that's because they are awake enough at 10:00 to mostly be able to listen to what we talk about. Fifth hour was also more engaged than they have been in the past, which was great.