{"id":1515,"date":"2008-09-17T14:23:58","date_gmt":"2008-09-17T18:23:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/?p=1515"},"modified":"2014-12-17T14:24:36","modified_gmt":"2014-12-17T19:24:36","slug":"guaranteed-ball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/2008\/09\/guaranteed-ball\/","title":{"rendered":"Guaranteed to Have a Ball"},"content":{"rendered":"\"fall-2008-r&d03\"<\/a>\n

\u201cEvery week there\u2019s a brand new lab that\u2019s never been thought of before.\u201d
\nallison okamura<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bicycles, springs, billiards, ball throwers, wind tunnels, music, and lacrosse balls. Those may sound like unlikely components to an under- graduate engineering course, but that\u2019s exactly what they are.<\/p>\n

In the Department of Mechanical Engineering, a newly launched curriculum integrates hands-on lessons in physics and mechanical engineering to bring to life the underlying principles of mechanical engineering. The curriculum is divided into three year long components: Freshman Experiences in Mechanical Engineering I and II, Introduction to Mechanics I and II, and Mechanical Engineering Freshman Laboratory I and II.<\/p>\n

In the Freshman Lab, toys are used to teach one-dimensional motion, bicycles in the study of forces, springs to illustrate the conservation of energy, and billiards to show the physics of collisions and momentum. Students must design ball throwers as a mid-semester design project, the wind tunnel is used to teach con- cepts of fluids, and music brings alive the com- plexity of wave theory.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery week there\u2019s a brand new lab that\u2019s never been thought of before,\u201d says associate professor Allison Okamura, who teaches the course. The goal? To get engineering students engaged as quickly as possible, to retain a diverse group of students, and\u2014fundamentally\u2014to generate student interest in the field.<\/p>\n

Planning and work for the new curriculum began in 2007, involving a committee of four professors: now-retired professor Bill Sharpe, professor Joseph Katz, former professor and former dean Ilene Busch-Vishniac, and assistant professor Lester Su, all in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Okamura was asked to develop the actual courses and, eventually, teach them.<\/p>\n

We asked, what turns people off?\u201d Okamura says. The professors learned that, to better capture the imagination of young engineering students, they would have to teach physics with an engineer\u2019s perspective. \u201cScience is the study of what is,\u201d she explains. \u201cEngineering is the study of what can be.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, instead of sending their newbie students off to the School of Arts and Sciences to enroll in introductory physics, the department now incorporates a more engineering influenced physics education into its own curriculum.<\/p>\n

Hence the lacrosse balls. By first building one and then measuring the density of it, fresh- men discover how uncertainty plays a role in engineering. \u201cStudents must question how measurement uncertainties increase when applied to the things we build,\u201d says Okamura. \u201cBecause they must make the ball and then measure it, they evaluate how the building of it may have introduced design or production flaws that result in measurement challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new curriculum, which is funded in part by the department chair\u2019s budget and the WSE Kenan Teachers Fund, aims to \u201cinstill in students, early on, a love of design and engineering,\u201d Okamura says. \u201cThere\u2019s no question that we\u2019ll continue to refine the curriculum. As we get feedback from students,\u201d she says, \u201cwe\u2019ll keep improving the courses.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cEvery week there\u2019s a brand new lab that\u2019s never been thought of before.\u201d allison okamura Bicycles, springs, billiards, ball throwers, wind tunnels, music, and lacrosse balls. Those may sound like unlikely components to an under- graduate engineering course, but that\u2019s exactly what they are. In the Department of Mechanical Engineering, a newly launched curriculum integrates…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1516,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research-development","issue-fall-2008"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nGuaranteed to Have a Ball - JHU Engineering Magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/2008\/09\/guaranteed-ball\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Guaranteed to Have a Ball - JHU Engineering Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201cEvery week there\u2019s a brand new lab that\u2019s never been thought of before.\u201d allison okamura Bicycles, springs, billiards, ball throwers, wind tunnels, music, and lacrosse balls. 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