Upper School Engineering Classes Take On Design Challenges Inspired by NASA’s Lunar Missions

The rapid design activities are a way to learn engineering concepts using common household materials such as paper cups, cardboard, straws and string.
St. Margaret’s introduction to engineering classes are taking on design challenges created by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and inspired by the NASA lunar missions.

The challenges are a way to continue hands-on engineering activities during remote learning. JPL’s rapid design activities are a way to learn engineering concepts using common household materials such as paper cups, cardboard, straws and string. Each block of the class, taught by Upper School science teacher Eric Trumbauer, have completed two challenges and are planning one more before the end of the school year.
 
“The tie-in to lunar missions seems appropriate given these restrictions, since it is evocative of the famous moment from Apollo XIII where engineers had to figure out how to fix an air filter problem using whatever materials were lying around,” Dr. Trumbauer said.
 
Students have so far taken on two challenges:
  1. Figure out how to use various materials to have a “satellite” (a cup) precisely drop its payload (a marble) onto a target while flying down a zipline.
  2. Inspired by Moon landers, students designed a lander to cushion the impact for marshmallow or paper ball astronauts so they don't get ejected from a small cup.
Students are creating quick videos to show their initial design, first test run (whether successful or not), explain improvements made and finally their best result.
 
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