What do I include in a High School Engineering Tool Kit 5

[jpandf]

We have a High school engineering club and I am putting together three "tool kits" to be used by the club. I have $500.00 per kit to spend. The goal of the club is to introduce students to all branches of engineering so the supplies should be general / diverse. I need ideas on what to include in the kit. We are thinking a multimeter, solar cells, wire, a small pump, hand tools. Any other ideas on what I should include?

 

[KENAT]

Sadly, I'll admit the 1st thing I'd look into is if there are any regulatory/health and safety/OSHA... rules or regs on what they can or can't be given.

When you say tool kits, it seems you mean just not the tools but also basic supplies for doing experiments?

For electrical I'd throw in some bulbs, led's, maybe even capacitors, solenoids, motors etc. We used to have some 'modular' bits and pieces that you could build circuits with then pull apart.

For mechanical, as well as a bunch of fasteners how about something like a mecano/erector set kit with gear, pulleys...

Make sure and include appropriate metrology equipment, a good steel rule, tape measure, calipers (real Verniers maybe without the digital read out just to make them think), Micrometer, level, feeler gauges... Your budget may not extend to all of these but depending what kind of projects they'll be doing and what they already have available in the physics room... you can down select.

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[jmw]

And maybe you can pick up some of the stuff as "contributions" from companies with a civic sense (promise a newsletter with credits that the students can write up... a monthly update on projects, skills learned, etc.)



JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[jpandf]

Great ideas! Thanks. Any ideas on items to include related to biomedical engineering? Lot's of student interest in this topic... maybe pumps and valves would do?

 

[KENAT]

Well, I vaguely recall a fad of folks at school building 'hands' (or at least the 'bones') out of technic Lego, adding some string ligaments and putting a glove on them.

So from the point of artificial limbs you could to crazy with various linkages etc. Playing around with some pneumatics & hydraulics could be cool too. Again technic lego used to have that, and now they have robots too.

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[jhardy1]

How about an Arduino board

http://www.arduino.cc/

, a mini breadboard, and a selection of wires and components like LEDs, buzzers, resistors, capacitors, etc.

 

[FeX32]

I like jhardy1's suggestion of the Arduino.
I used it a few times before. The first time I built an autonomus mobile robot. Was lots of fun!

Don't forget

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_rocket

Or how about a model of an IC engine. Or a model of a DC motor....

I can think of tons of engineering related things that would be great.
You could also consider stopping by a lotal hobby shop..


Fe

 

[FeX32]

Or anything from this site.

http://www.aqpl43.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/museum.htm

Fe

 

[msquared48]

How about a hand held calculator - kinda common across the board for Engineering...

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering

 

[jmw]

Biomedical engineering? get a copy of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin's excellent treatise on the subject, still considered one of the most authoritative works.

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[SomptingGuy]

Grey tape
Blue roll
Swarfega

- Steve

 

[Mr168]

-Soldering iron
-Scale
-Safety glasses
-TheTick's list

 

[MadMango]

What about popsicle sticks, hot glue guns, ping-pong balls, etc?

"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."


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[YoungTurk]

I think the electrical/electronic work would be greatly enhanced by some ability for control and/or data acquisition. Arduino sounds like a great option. You might also consider a Labview education kit:

http://sine.ni.com/nips/cds/view/p/lang/en/nid/14681

Add in some thermocouples, accelerometers, relays, etc. and you can accomplish a lot both in terms of electronics and in terms of expanding on mechanical/physical experiments through data acquisition and analysis.

On the mechanical side, consider a vacuum pump or vacuum generator if you have access to compressed air. With some plastic sheet, tape, and creativity you can use that to do composite layup work or form wood/plastic sheets over molds.

 

[graybeach]

Tools for hand drafting (triangles, scales, protractor, compass, etc.) And a drafting textbook. I just got one for $1.00 from Amazon.

 

[BlaineW]

Is it sad that the first things that came to mind were Gantt charts, Powerpoint slides, and a coffee mug?

 

[lacajun]

Engineering pad so they'll learn how to graph rather than let a PC do it for them.

 

[YoungTurk]

I see lots of emphasis on old school / analog / traditional engineering and drafting tools. While that's great stuff to learn, I have a hard time imagining high school kids getting excited and/or joining a club which furnishes drafting sets and hand tools (although I do recall haveing a plastic drafting board in elementary school). Am I off base?

Question for the OP... Can you give a little more detail on what sorts of things the club does; where they take direction from or what they're working towards?

 

[FeX32]

humbug....rockets will get them watching....


Fe

 

[ornerynorsk]

Thermite!

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.