WeldEd:
Engineering Your Future

This page displays a summary of all 12 engineering workshops and lets you easily and quickly search based on concepts, process skills, and/or student objectives.

WORKSHOPS

1. Understanding Stress & Load

After reading descriptions of three types of stress and three kinds of load, students label stress and load points on diagrams of a bike, a basketball backboard and a canoe.

Student Objectives:

  • Identify three types of stress: tensile, compression and shearing.
  • Identify three kinds of load: static, impact and repetitive.

Workshop Download: Understanding Stress & Load

2. Resisting Force

Students predict and experiment with wood boards to determine if the quality of one property predicts the quality of another property in a given material.

Student Objectives:

  • Test materials and conclude that the characteristic of one property in a material does not necessarily indicate the characteristic of another.

Workshop Download: Resisting Force

3. Differing Stress Resistance of Metals

Students predict and experiment to determine if brass and aluminum have the same resistance to impact loads and if a metal that has a high resistance to impact loads also has a high resistance to repetitive loads.

Student Objectives:

  • Test materials and conclude that the characteristic of one property in a material does not necessarily indicate the characteristic of another.

Workshop Download: Differing Stress Resistance of Metals

4. Testing Properties

After reading descriptions of tests used by professionals to determine the properties of materials, students label diagrams of testing equipment and compare the tests they have done to the professional tests.

Student Objectives:

  • Identify similarities in tests from workshops 2 and 3 with tests engineers make.

Workshop Download: Testing Properties

5. Joining Materials

Students label diagrams of a hammer, cooking pan and shovel as being of one-piece or joined-pieces construction. They apply information from previous workshops to label points of stress.

Student Objectives:

  • Identify characteristics of objects with and without joints.
  • Identify appropriate means of joining pieces depending on materials and intended use.

Workshop Download: Joining Materials

6. Modeling and Building to Specification

Students follow specifications for building balsa wood models of the five basic joints and check adherence to specifications on the models built by others.

Student Objectives:

  • Identify the five basic types of joints.
  • Follow working drawings to create models built to specification.
  • Check measurements on models for adherence to specifications.

Workshop Download: Modeling and Building to Specification

7. Stress Throughout a Structure

Students demonstrate that stress applied directly to one part of a structure can affect other parts.

Student Objectives:

  • Demonstrate that force acting on one part of a structure can cause stress in other parts.

Workshop Download: Stress Throughout a Structure

8. Relating Design to Stress

Students predict and experiment to determine if plain, notched and drilled slats vary in their ability to withstand tensile stress.

Student Objectives:

  • Demonstrate that altering the shape and structure of an object can alter its resistance to stress.
  • Gather and analyze experimental data.

Workshop Download: Relating Design to Stress

9. Movement of Heat Through Materials

Students predict and experiment to rank aluminum, copper, steel, brass and glass according to efficiency in conducting heat.

Student Objectives:

  • Demonstrate that not all metals have the same capacity to conduct heat.

Workshop Download: Movement of Heat Through Materials

10. Welding to Join

Students use candles and paraffin blocks to model fusion welding and solid-state bonding.

Student Objectives:

  • Identify the characteristics of fusion welding and deformation bonding.
  • Model fusion welding and deformation bonding.

Workshop Download: Welding to Join

11. Specific Heat and Melting

Students predict and experiment to rank aluminum, copper, and steel according to their specific heats.

Student Objectives:

  • Define specific heat.
  • Demonstrate differences in specific heats of aluminum, copper and steel.

Workshop Download: Specific Heat and Melting

12. Teamwork: The Key to Technology

Student teams plan, organize, carry out and report the results of an investigation to determine the ranking of the joint models made in Workshop 6 for ability to resist compression stress and tensile stress.

Student Objectives:

  • Work effectively as a team to plan, organize, carry out and report the results of a scientific inquiry.

Workshop Download: Teamwork: The Key to Technology

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