Physical Activities for Engineers

Our research group is busy testing the four physical activities that are built into the storyboard of the Digital Zoo version that will run next spring. These activities are designed to support the physics concepts that the young engineers will encounter as they work with Sodaconstructor. Most recently, Aran presented the epistemic games group with the challenge: build a structure using marshmallows and straws that is at least four inches high and can support a mass (we used a notebook) for as long as possible. Guess which one Professor Shaffer built?

As we performed the activity, we realized that it will be important to use terms of engineering to explain and contextualize the task, so that “build something with marshmallows and straws” becomes less of an excuse to get gooey and more of an authentic design problem.  If we use the rhetoric that actual engineers would use, the students will have a sense that the purpose of their structure is to build alternative designs, the best of which will satisfy a client.