Engineering Outreach Activity


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<><> Purpose <><>

The objective of this project was to create a fun, hands-on classroom activity targeted toward elementary school students that thought them an engineering or science principle. The theme of this year's projects was the life of Hedy Lamarr, a Hollywood movie star and co-inventor of spread spectrum technology. The class projects must create an activity that incorporates cinematic technology or spread spectrum technology and its applications (e.g., cryptography). For more information, the project assignment page can be viewed here.


<><> Our Activity: Making Sound Effects <><>
A major part of post-movie production is adding sound effects. We thought that teaching how to create such rich sound effects using common household items would be a great idea for engaging young students while teaching them how sound works.

Our web page proposal can be viewed here.


<><> The Process <><>

We followed the plan outlined above in our proposal page with a few notable exceptions.

First, to reinforce the lesson on sound, we decided to use an oscilloscope as a major part of our activity. (We actually used computer software that displayed sound waveforms rather than a big, bulky oscilloscope device.) With a microphone hooked up to the laptop, students could either view recording sounds and see what kind of waveform they make, or create their own live sounds and watch what results they get in real-time.

Instead of manufacturing the hinge for the snapper, we decided to create plastic hollow half-spheres that could be clapped together to create the sound of a galloping horse. Originally, we thought that we could use CNC Milling as our manufacturing process, but Mike Vandeweghe explained that clamping a sphere like that would be difficult, and so instead we used Fused Deposition Manufacturing (FDM) based on his recommendation.

Downloads for our CAD Drawings and Models:
hoof.ics
hoof.igs
hoof.stl


<><> The Testing <><>

We had several opportunities to present our activity in front of the class and test it with elementary school visitors. You can view pictures of these tests here.


<><> The Final Product <><>

Here are our handouts for the classroom and take-home activities:
Teacher Instructions
Students, In-Class
Students, Take-Home
Parents, Take-Home

These, as well as all the materials for our activity were presented at Meeting of the Minds, Carnegie Mellon's Undergraduate Research Symposium, on May 9, 2001.


<><> What I Learned <><>

From working with children during testing:
· Children recognize the sound effects even quicker than we anticipated. They would even create some of their own with the given material.
· The average boy enjoyed the louder sound effects more than the average girl. Nonetheless, girls liked the activity as much as the boys did.
· Their knowledge of sound waves surprised us. There were fifth and sixth graders who already knew what amplitude and pitch are, although they might not have known the correct terminology.
· You can never be too careful or safe when around children. For example, one tip of the trade called for rubbing a cork dipped in turpentine against a glass bottle to create animal sounds. We had to improvise with something non-toxic, vinegar.
· Also, a lot of simulated sound effects suggest violent themes, such as gunshots and swordfights. An added challenge to our task was formulating a clean, good-natured skit. We thought would do the trick.

What I learned about manufacturing:
FDM is a really slick, rapid process. Milling would have required an hour of converting our IronCAD file into CC Code, acquiring the stock material, clamping it down, and calibrating the Milling Machine. With the FDM machine, the conversion into a CNC readable format was much easier, and we didn't have to worry about getting the stock material beforehand.


Acknowledgement. Without the gracious help of Mike Vandeweghe, the manufacturing portion of our project would not have gone nearly as efficiently as it did. Thanks, Mike!


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