Groups of NDSU mechanical engineering students designed toys and games to get young children excited about science, technology, engineering and math as part of the final project for their Introduction to Mechanical Engineering course.
Jessica Vold, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, got the idea for this hands-on learning opportunity from a community of engineering faculty called “Engineering Unleashed” which focuses on instilling the entrepreneurial mindset into engineering students to enable them to become more impactful, empathetic and innovative engineers.
“This class has been a lot of fun to teach,” Vold said. “I have forced my students to step outside their comfort zone and focus on working effectively in a group setting while giving them a small look into what they can expect from their four years with us in the mechanical engineering department.”
Designs in the class have ranged from golf games where kids choose the fulcrum point on a lever to try to launch a ball into a cup, to peg boards with various sized gears that can be inserted into the board, to make a fan spin at different speeds, to board games that incorporate trivia about simple machines or challenge cards that involve using simple machines to accomplish a specific task.
Besides designing and building the games and toys, many teams also presented ideas on how their protypes could be changed and taken to market. Vold says this type of thinking is a byproduct of the entrepreneurial mindset teaching style.
“One of the biggest benefits from hands-on learning like this is the connections that students make between the theory heavy curriculum they read about in textbooks to the impacts engineering has on the world around them,” said Vold. “After each project, we tie the theory that could have helped the students improve their design into the mechanical engineering curriculum so they understand why we teach the courses we do throughout their education.”
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