The Technology Teacher 021 - www.techteacherlive.com / Sail Away Boat Building

Links:

http://www.cnusd.k12.ca.us/ecms/departments/tech_ed/boats/sail_boats.htm

http://tryengineering.org 

 

Transcript:

Welcome to The Technology Teacher podcast, episode number 20.

I'm your host, Ron Kroetz, technology education teacher at El Cerrito Middle School in Corona, CA.

This week I'm sharing with you a project I use in my Technology Education classes.  IT's called Sail Away and involves the students building sail boats.  I got the original idea from a cool website called tryengineering.org.  The learning objectives are fairly simple in that I am teaching the basics of the engineering design process.  As many of youknow, the design process is a major standard in the Standards for Technological Literacy as published by the International Technology Education Association.

 Basically, I built a small tank in my room, measuring six inches high, 12 inches wide, and 32 feet long.  The students then have to design a boat that will fit in the tank and carry a one pound weight.  Check my blog, at techteacherlive.com, for links to the actual assignment, specifications, and pictures of several boats and the tank.

 This is a fun project that kids seem to enjoy as they get to build something with their hands and test it in class.  It encourages creative problem solving, which is a skill that I find lacking in many young people that come through my classroom.  If you go to my site and you like the project, feel free to use it or modify it in any way.  If you make modifications, let me know.  I'd love to see them.

Do you have a cool website or piece of software we should talk about?  Drop me an email at ron.techteacher@gmail.com and let me know.



Music:

Intro song: Technocracy by Out of Tune   http://opsound.org/artist/outoftune/

Background song: Sky Solo by The Bradford Project   http://www.garageband.com/artist/BradfordProject