HELP! Suggestions for High School Structural Engineering Curriculum 11

[rrumer]

Hello Everyone -
I am an electrical engineer teaching high school Structural Engineering to Jr/Sr boys. Not all of them will be technical. I am really interested in what topics should/should not be included in the course. This is an exposure course that complements our Architecture class. We want to develop their interest in engineering and not overwhelm them.
Science: Physics-forces, moments, static equilibrium, Center of Mass, stability. Materials: stress, strain, strength, Young's Modulus, focus on steel, concrete, wood
Technology: Construction of houses: foundation, walls, flooring, trusses, etc. Lots of case studies and failures.
Engineering: Dead Loads, Live Loads, Snow, Wind, Earthquake, Structural Analysis and build of - beam, column, truss, bridge, tower. Stress/Strain/Shear/Moment/Deflection. Safety Factor
Mathematics: Nothing past Trigonometry and Logarithms
Previous Design/Building Projects: 1.) 20' diameter Geodesic dome (PVC), 2.) 16'x16' standalone wood deck.
Software: Using Fusion 360 (free, works on Mac) ... easy simulation of designs. Other free easy software suggestions?
Thanks in advance for your assistance!
Bob

 

[Ron]

@rrumer....while what you're trying to do is certainly commendable and ambitious, I wonder if you are throwing too much at a very young audience. Will it challenge them or will it sour them on the potential difficulty of an engineering curriculum in college? Hard to say, but I've seen firsthand the effect that a structural engineering course has had on Construction Management students in their 3rd year of college. I am a structural engineer (specializing in structural and construction forensics) and I teach part-time at a regional university in the Construction Management program. These are students pursuing a career in construction, not engineering. I have taught a required course in structural engineering on several occasions and because of their lack of physics and math requirements they sometimes have difficulty with the basic concepts of shear and moment diagrams, loads and load factors, etc. Their bottom line commentary has often been..."now you know why I'm in construction and not engineering!"

Also, I would approach the course from a manual calculation perspective and only introduce software after they have the concepts of hand calculations well established. Relying too much on software for analysis defeats their ability to think through structural solutions and understand load paths and basic principles.

Good luck and I would suggest that you contact a few local structural engineers to come in and speak to your class. While I'm sure you're capable of teaching the basic physics concepts, being a "Sparky" you probably have not been exposed to the analysis and design nuances of structural engineering.

 

[EngineeringEric]

A lot of what you listed in early college courses. I would not focus on the nuts and bolts of how to generate a shear moment diagram of drill the Sum of Moments about a point... i think you want to be very broad and make it fun. Sum of forces is great! i love your idea for the 'Technology' section where they learn terminology and failures and what different things do. maybe even run a load path of gravity on a house if it is simple enough.

the intro to loads is great, but designing a member is hard. that is again a full semester for college juniors!

I am sure your kids can do it, but as Ron mentioned... if it is too hard at this point in their academic life they will write off STEM as a whole, which i think is opposite of what you want. But if they gain an intro to all the theory and the background as to what we do, they may be encouraged to explore it in more detail or go into the field in college.



Think what you learned for electrical engineering, would you want to teach these kids the fine details of it or just some cool experiments and understanding of Ohm's law and what an open vs closed circuit is in the form of a light switch that gets used daily with a simple breadboard?



PS: Kudos to you for doing this!!! it sounds awesome and those kids are lucky!!!!!!

 

[ldeem]

For high school introductory class can you spend time on site visits and having engineers and contractors come in to talk? I would think hitting kids with heavy math and calculations may be a deterrent to entering the field. In my opinion the job satisfaction from this field is seeing your designs in real life.

 

[cliff234]

I agree with some of the other comments. Stay away from heavy math. I also suggest staying away from computer software. (Perhaps you can discuss software briefly, but don't focus on it.) Instead try to embed an understanding of how structures work. What's a beam? What's a column? What kinds of foundations do buildings have? Discuss load paths. Discuss serviceability and show them videos of structures vibrating, swaying in the wind and swaying during earthquakes. (There are some great videos on YouTube.) Talk about how suspension bridges have fallen down due to soldiers marching in step. Talk about the fundamentals of wind and seismic loads and design for those loads. Discuss lateral systems in buildings. Talk about concrete. What goes into making concrete? How can concrete be made stronger? Talk about steel. Yield strength, tensile strength. Talk about wood and masonry. Ask some contractors and engineers to visit and talk to your class. When I was about 11 or 12 I built balsa wood model airplanes. I learned as much about structures and physics building those airplanes than I did years later in any of my college classes. Perhaps you can have your class build small bridges out of balsa wood and have a contest to see who can build a bridge that will support the heaviest load.

 

[phamENG]

rrumer - as Ron and Eric have said, this is an ambitious program - exactly what our secondary school systems need! Thank you for doing it and bringing exposure of real world applications of STEM to your students.

I took physics as a senior in high school. It was an elective, and probably the most consequential decision of my adolescence. It shaped my course for a technical enlistment in the military and my eventual interest and (so far) success in structural engineering. I hope what you're doing has a similar impact on these kids.

Spend some time on basic kinematics and how it translates to statics. Explain some of the basic concepts of beam bending and column buckling, but keep it simple. Don't try to get into the math unless these kids have had a good calculus course - which sounds like it isn't the case. Just feeding them the formulas without the background to understand why those formulas represent real, physical behaviors are more likely to lead to confusion or even disillusionment. I knew plenty of junior civil engineering students aiming for structures who experienced that confusion and disillusionment, and they had already finished Calc 3.

Site visits are going to be key. Visits from professionals and contractors might be good, but make sure they are. A lot of people who are fantastic at designing or building a structure are absolutely horrible when it comes to talking about it - especially to a bunch of kids. Try to link up with a really active design and/or construction firm that can help you create parallels. Once they have some of the basics down, you can help them "design" little pieces of a structure and see what they come up with. If they can then see that structure being built, it'll make it real for them.

For software, don't get into analysis. I'd say teaching them Revit would be very valuable. AutoDesk has free licensing for educational purposes. They may have some charge for an institution, but I'm sure it's at a greatly reduced rate. This will allow them to see how a structure goes together without needing to do complex calculations or manage the complicated input requirements of analysis software. It also makes a pretty 3D picture when they're done. If you couple this with the site visit idea above, they can see the real building take the form of their picture.

 

[IRstuff]

The course and its material need to be tailored to the audience, as usual. If this is a school characterized as "college prep" with AP and IB classes, then some level of math commensurate with the student's AP courses would not be bad. Your class should be consistent with the overall goals of the school and its students. At a high school like Troy, or Gunn, the level of math would need to be much higher, since nearly everyone in attendance at those schools expect near-college level course materials. If this course is anomalous, i.e., in a school that might struggle to fill a single AP Calculus class, then the material needs to simplified to be consistent with the students' capabilities and aspirations. This is all a pretty fine line to tread.

Nevertheless, kudos to you for doing this; this class might certainly be a discriminator when it comes to applying for college. My two kids made it through that process, but it was absurdly competitive these days, and any clean discriminator would be a leg up in the admissions process.

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[SlideRuleEra]

Discuss how structural engineering does not exist in a vacuum but blends in with other engineering disciplines, such as:

Civil grading and soil prep tie in with design of a structural slab on grade.

Mechanical equipment and piping needs to be integrated with structural components.

Geotechnical reports may be essential and influence design of structural foundations.

Essential electrical duct banks and cable trays may drive structural layout and details.

http://www.SlideRuleEra.net

 

[IRstuff]

Additionally, since AP Physics/Calculus AB and BC cover statics and dynamics, derivatives and integrals, your course material should attempt to dovetail itself with where the students are in their physics and math progressions.

It was always kind of funny, at 8am, when our AP Physics instructor would say, "I'm going through some material this morning that you guys will be covering in AP Calculus next week." We had a crazy-smart student who completed AP Physics his junior year, so he was mostly doing independent study, but one day, he was the guest lecturer in AP Physics, talking about elliptic integrals; whoosh...

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[r13]

More hands on projects that proving theories but without math, which tends to drive students away except a select/gifted few.

 

[oldestguy]

I'd soft pedal any details. I'd not dwell on one pat of engineering, since there are many out there. Field trips? Sure. To much detail will scare many kids.

 

[EdStainless]

What you need to teaching these students is two few things.
1. There are lots of different positions in 'construction'. Everything form designing buildings, to making various components, to working at job sites. And these jobs cover a wide range of education and interest.
2. A general into to strength of materials is good, but don't get lost in the weeds. They need to be aware that different materials behave very differently and that there are pluses and minuses to this.
3. There are ways to calculate all of the structural design features, but they don't need to know them. Maybe an intro using a simple truss design or something else that will stretch them a little without being overdone.

Years ago I worked with a school group and they did some simple design work and them built some items. And we then destructively tested them.
Case studies are great, both successes and failures. And seeing actual items in your area that are unusual is also a way to spark interest.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
P.E. Metallurgy, consulting work welcomed

 

[IRstuff]

High school is very different from what most us experienced. While taking 4 or 5 AP classes 45 yrs ago would have been overachieving, today's high schoolers might be taking 10 AP/IB classes on top of 4 additional IB classes. Current high school curricula can include two years of computer programming, two years of AP Physics, two years of AP Calculus, plus an additional year of AP Calculus II or AP Statistics. It's pretty much a grind, but "kids" that go through that, and the IB degree, can easily graduate in 3 yrs from ANY college. Such student usually reach senior status at the end of their freshman year, limited only by humanities and major requirements.

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[r13]

What is AP, IB?

Back to home, the high school categorize student into 4 different groups, each one has its own focus and concentration to prepare student to be successful in college, it involves advanced studies, nothing new. But one concentration usually is not a good idea for all kids, as everybody has different interests and brain function.

 

[IRstuff]

AP is Advanced Placement; typically a score of 5/5 will get you college credit in the course being tested
IB is International Baccalaureate; being a diplomate, which involves completely 6)(?) classes and taking the test gets you additional credits in college.

The net effect is typically a 1-yr head start on college. It's such a big deal that a school's offerings and performance on these for a major portion of US News and World Reports' annual high school rankings.

And these tests are on top of PSAT/SAT and other subject matter tests offered by College Board. I think my oldest took something like 19 exams before he graduated. The high school graduation exam was almost a joke at that level.

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[BUGGAR]

Practical applications: angle from horizontal of a ball off the bat for maximum distance, how fast will daddy's car go with 200-rwhp. Stuff they can do today.

 

[Dajamies]

Skyciv is great learner software if you wanted to lightly touch into FEA. They have a free 4 month educator/teacher membership you can apply for. I wish I had knew about it in my last 2 years of college to use as an aid. Anyway, check it out and good Luck!

 

[r13]

Practical applications: angle from horizontal of a ball off the bat for maximum distance, how fast will daddy's car go with 200-rwhp. Stuff they can do today.

In conjunction with "engineering economics 101"

 

[phamENG]

As a veteran and casualty of a fantastic IB program (public high school ranked in the top 35 in the nation the year I graduated), I can say that the prerequisites of the OP indicate that this class is NOT for IB students. If the highest math you've been exposed to by your Junior year is trig, it may not even be advanced placement.

That said, there are a lot of really bright kids who are not in IB or AP. In many ways, this sort of class is best for those kids. From my experience, the IB/AP crowd typically have more engaged faculty and family than those who are not in those programs. They are going to be more likely to go on to a college with the right people to guide them into the "gold collar" careers or find meaningful work somewhere. It's the ones outside of these programs that usually need the guidance or exposure to the world beyond what their parents or their friends' parents do for a living.

 

[r13]

Skyciv is great learner software if you wanted to lightly touch into FEA.

Today's kids already are over-exposed on computers. Unless you wish to turn out a bunch of junior engineers that are great in software manipulation but weak in engineering philosophy/theories, and lacking capability of critical thinking/judgement, then go ahead.