Students investigate circuits and their components by building a basic thermostat. They learn why key parts are necessary for the circuit to function, and alter the circuit to optimize the thermostat temperature range. They also gain an awareness of how electrical engineers design circuits for the countless electronic products in our world.

The Challenge Question of the Legacy Cycle draws the student into considering the engineering ingenuity of nature. It will force him to analyze, appreciate and understand the wisdom of these designs as the student team focuses on meeting each of the challenge's requirements. The student is asked, with his team members, to envision a sustainable design for a future guest village within the Saguaro National Park, outside of Tucson, Arizona. What issues need to be addressed to support the comforts of park visitors without compromising the natural resources or endangering the endemic species of the area? A deeper scope of application will reveal extensions of this design in the incorporation of urban planning and systems design. It also strengthens the concept of manufacturing and building without producing waste or pollution.

This is an in class activity created for Organic Chemistry I at LaGuardia Community College.

Students learn about the mathematical characteristics and reflective property of ellipses by building their own elliptical-shaped pool tables. After a slide presentation introduction to ellipses, student “engineering teams” follow the steps of the engineering design process to develop prototypes, which they research, plan, sketch, build, test, refine, and then demonstrate, compare and share with the class. Using these tables as models to explore the geometric shape of ellipses, they experience how particles rebound off the curved ellipse sides and what happens if particles travel through the foci. They learn that if a particle travels through one focal point, then it will travel through the second focal point regardless of what direction the particle travels.

Dredging equipment, mechanical dredgers, hydraulic dredgers, boundary conditions, design criteria, instrumentation and automation.

Students use two different methods to determine the densities of a variety of materials and objects. The first method involves direct measurement of the volumes of objects that have simple geometric shapes. The second is the water displacement method, used to determine the volumes of irregularly shaped objects. After the densities are determined, students create x-y scatter graphs of mass versus volume, which reveal that objects with densities less than water (floaters) lie above the graph's diagonal (representing the density of water), and those with densities greater than water (sinkers) lie below the diagonal.

The course treats: the discrete Fourier Transform (DFT), the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), their application in OFDM and DSL; elements of estimation theory and their application in communications; linear prediction, parametric methods, the Yule-Walker equations, the Levinson algorithm, the Schur algorithm; detection and estimation filters; non-parametric estimation; selective filtering, application to beamforming.

Students create model elevator carriages and calibrate them, similar to the work of design and quality control engineers. Students use measurements from rotary encoders to recreate the task of calibrating elevators for a high-rise building. They translate the rotations from an encoder to correspond to the heights of different floors in a hypothetical multi-story building. Students also determine the accuracy of their model elevators in getting passengers to their correct destinations.

With a simple demonstration activity, students are introduced to the concept of friction as a force that impedes motion when two surfaces are in contact. Then, in the Associated Activity (Sliding and Stuttering), they work in teams to use a spring scale to drag an object such as a ceramic coffee cup along a table top or the floor. The spring scale allows them to measure the frictional force that exists between the moving cup and the surface it slides on. By modifying the bottom surface of the cup, students can find out what kinds of surfaces generate more or less friction. They also discover that both static and kinetic friction are involved when an object initially at rest is caused to slide across a surface.

Using the same method for measuring friction that was used in the previous lesson (Discovering Friction), students design and conduct experiments to determine if the amount of area over which an object contacts a surface it is moving across affects the amount of friction encountered.

Following the steps of the iterative engineering design process, student teams use what they learned in the previous lessons and activity in this unit to research and choose materials for their model heart valves and test those materials to compare their properties to known properties of real heart valve tissues. Once testing is complete, they choose final materials and design and construct prototype valve models, then test them and evaluate their data. Based on their evaluations, students consider how they might redesign their models for improvement and then change some aspect of their models and retest aiming to design optimal heart valve models as solutions to the unit's overarching design challenge. They conclude by presenting for client review, in both verbal and written portfolio/report formats, summaries and descriptions of their final products with supporting data.

Using the same method for measuring friction that was used in the previous lesson (Discovering Friction), students design and conduct an experiment to determine if weight added incrementally to an object affects the amount of friction encountered when it slides across a flat surface. After graphing the data from their experiments, students can calculate the coefficients of friction between the object and the surface it moved upon, for both static and kinetic friction.

In the first part of the activity, each student chews a piece of gum until it loses its sweetness, and then leaves the gum to dry for several days before weighing it to determine the amount of mass lost. This mass corresponds to the amount of sugar in the gum, and can be compared to the amount stated on the package label. In the second part of the activity, students work in groups to design and conduct new experiments based on questions of their own choosing. These questions arise naturally from observations during the first experiment, and from students' own experiences with and knowledge of the many varieties of chewing and bubble gums available.

Student groups are provided with a generic car base on which to design a device/enclosure to protect an egg on or in the car as it rolls down a ramp at increasing slopes. During this in-depth physics/science/technology activity, student teams design, build and test their creations to meet the design challenge, and are expected to perform basic mathematical calculations using collected data, including a summative cost to benefit ratio.

Students practice creating rudimentary detail drawings. They learn how engineers communicate the technical information about their designs using the basic components of detail drawings. They practice creating their own drawings of a three-dimensional block and a special LEGO piece, and then make 3D sketches of an unknown object using only the information provided in its detail drawing.

Students use a compass and a permanent magnet to trace the magnetic field lines produced by the magnet. By positioning the compass in enough spots around the magnet, the overall magnet field will be evident from the collection of arrows representing the direction of the compass needle. In activities 3 and 4 of this unit, students will use this information to design a way to solve the grand challenge of separating metal for a recycling company.

A Python Functions activity - "Drawing with Turtle" - for CS0 students. Part of the CUNY CS04All project.

The course focuses on three main dredging processes: the cutting of sand, clay and rock, the sedimentation process in hopper dredges and the breaching process