This 6 week learning lab introduces middle schoolers (especially girls) to engineering.  Each week, during a 1.5 hour session, we’ll see demos and do hands-on engineering activities.  We'll learn about: 

 Satellites     • Environmental Engineering    •   Soft Materials

 Neural Engineering  • Biomechanics •   Computer Graphics and Modeling

Amy Shen

Mechanical Engineering

Dan Giammar

Drinking Water Treatment

Civil Engineering

Energy, Environmental, and Chemical Engineering

October 20, 2007

October 27, 2007

Cindy Grimm
Bill Smart

Robots, Computer Vision and Computer Graphics

Computer Science and Engineering

November 3, 2006

Michael Swartwout

November 11, 2006

Instructor:  Amy Shen Ph.D, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering

Open the ketchup bottle and hold it upside down. Nothing happens. You have to bang on the bottle in order to get your ketchup. Now, repeat the experiment with a bottle of red wine. No bang is necessary. Clearly, it is more than taste and culture that distinguishes ketchup from wine. This is what the science of complex fluids is about. We will learn some fun examples of complex fluids/squishy materials that we encounter in the kitchen (food products), in the bathroom (cosmetic products), and in high-tech setting (LCD display, etc). We will cover examples such as toothpaste, ketchup, soap, DNA, and smart windows.

Learn more about Dr. Shen's research

See examples of complex fluids at Dr. Tewari's website at Mt. Holyoke College

Week 2 (10/13) Drinking Water Treatment

Instructor:  Dan Giammar, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Energy, Environmental       

     and Chemical Engineering      

Environmental engineers study and solve problems in water quality, air quality, and solid and hazardous waste. The safe and clean drinking water that we each get at our homes is produced by environmental engineers. We will discuss where we get our drinking water, what is in the water, and how we treat the water so that it is safe for us to drink. In particular, we will talk about particles suspended in water, dissolved organic matter, and pH, which is a measure of the acidity of water. We will then discuss the treatment technologies that environmental engineers use to clean the water.

     Learn more about drinking water:

• Learn where St. Louis City water comes from at www.stlwater.com

• How clean is St. Louis water?  Check out the 2006 Consumer Confidence Report (CCR)

• Who protects our water supply?  Look at the U.S. Protection Agency Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water website

• View information on water quality for the entire country at water.usgs.gov

• Locate your watershed and learn about watersheds at water.usgs.gov/wsc/map_index.html

Week 3 (10/20)    
Instructors:  Kurt Thoroughman, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Biomedical

     Engineering

Instructors:  Cindy Grimm, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Computer Science
                   Bill Smart, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Computer Science

Learn how to generate and understand shapes using computers. We will show how simple programs and a little math can create complex, beautiful
looking 2D and 3D shapes such as snowflakes, plants, and CG characters in
animated movies and commercials. We will also learn how computers can
recognize 3D objects like faces and see a demo of Lewis the Robot
Photographer.

Storytelling Alice link: www.alice.org (go to download page).

Files for animations from class:

       http://www.classes.cec.wustl.edu/~cse552/GRC.tar.gz

Instructor:  Michael Swartwout, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Mechanical and  

    Aerospace Engineering

We'll finish off in space. Learn about the life cycle of a satellite.  We’ll talk about the elements of a spacecraft: power, structure, navigation, communications, computer, thermal, and instruments.  And, we’ll learn what it takes to develop a satellite from designing, building, and testing to launching and operating.  We’ll also:

·        Watch a video of the Sapphire satellite separation test

·        Visit the ground control station

·        Simulate building and testing a satellite with a simple model

Click here for an online version of Prof. Swartwout’s handout.

     Learn more about satellites:

• Track spacecraft in orbit at the Heavens Above website

• Link to NASA for Grades 5-8, 9-12

• Link to Aeronautics Learning Laboratory for Science Technology and Research (ALLSTAR) at Florida International University

Week 6 (11/10)

Instructor: Steve Thomopoulos, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Biomedical
     Engineering and Orthopaedic Surgery

We'll learn about bones and joints in the final lab. How much force does it take to break a bone? Where does bone get its strength? We'll see that collagen and mineral give bone it's amazing ability to carry load. We'll dissolve away the mineral to see how it contributes to bone strength. We'll also talk about tendons and ligaments. How do these tissues get injured? What does a surgeon need to do to repair a tendon or ligament back to its bony insertion?

Dr. Thomopoulos's website