Terratech airplane design project
Subject: The Design Process/ Iterative Design/ The Engineering Process
Topic: Airplane Design
Lesson Objectives: Given 4 work periods totaling 2 hours, students will use their understanding of the design process and flight to create and refine airplane that can fly in Terratech - a physics-based videogame. The emphasis will be on redesigning after failure.
Summary of tasks: On the first day, students are introduced to the design process via a five-minute video, discussion, and a visual on our media center website. Students are then tasked with learning the basic controls of Terratech by playing the game's campaign mode. This features a nice-yet-incomplete tutorial of the mechanics, controls, and features of the game. One the second day, students receive their assignment - or rather their design problem. To emphasize and review the design process, the steps of the assignment are broken down as steps in the design process. A graphic of the forces of flight is also discussed. Before sending students to the computer lab, I model how to bring up the game, change the graphics settings, and begin designing a basic plane. I model my thinking in what my plane might need upon first failure.
The third day of the project focuses on coming up with a new design problem once flight is attained. We discuss making planes faster, larger, and for specific purposes (military planes, celebrations, humor). Some pictures are shared of successes, and I once again model the design process, making my original plane faster and larger by degrees.
One the final two days of the assignment, students turn in their assignments by uploading screenshots to a save file in the lab. This process is modeled and I uploaded a screencast of my exact, in-person demonstration for those who might want to slow the process down. Students who finished - and most students did - got to fly drones in media center while others finished. This was more joy and fun than edification.
Materials:
1. The RLES Media Center Website:
Project Day #1
Project Day #2 through #4
2. Computer Lab and 24 digital copies of Terratech.
3. Mambo Drones and iPads
Topic: Airplane Design
Lesson Objectives: Given 4 work periods totaling 2 hours, students will use their understanding of the design process and flight to create and refine airplane that can fly in Terratech - a physics-based videogame. The emphasis will be on redesigning after failure.
Summary of tasks: On the first day, students are introduced to the design process via a five-minute video, discussion, and a visual on our media center website. Students are then tasked with learning the basic controls of Terratech by playing the game's campaign mode. This features a nice-yet-incomplete tutorial of the mechanics, controls, and features of the game. One the second day, students receive their assignment - or rather their design problem. To emphasize and review the design process, the steps of the assignment are broken down as steps in the design process. A graphic of the forces of flight is also discussed. Before sending students to the computer lab, I model how to bring up the game, change the graphics settings, and begin designing a basic plane. I model my thinking in what my plane might need upon first failure.
The third day of the project focuses on coming up with a new design problem once flight is attained. We discuss making planes faster, larger, and for specific purposes (military planes, celebrations, humor). Some pictures are shared of successes, and I once again model the design process, making my original plane faster and larger by degrees.
One the final two days of the assignment, students turn in their assignments by uploading screenshots to a save file in the lab. This process is modeled and I uploaded a screencast of my exact, in-person demonstration for those who might want to slow the process down. Students who finished - and most students did - got to fly drones in media center while others finished. This was more joy and fun than edification.
Materials:
1. The RLES Media Center Website:
Project Day #1
Project Day #2 through #4
2. Computer Lab and 24 digital copies of Terratech.
3. Mambo Drones and iPads
Students at Work and play
Student Airplane Designs
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