The Bay School of San Francisco is an independent high school where innovative teaching and learning is grounded in mindfulness, equity, and community.
Director of the Project Center Brad Niven describes students' challenges and successes with a recent engineering project. The Advanced Product Design Class produced tables for their second project of the trimester. They had to design and build a table that was capable of folding flat, and they each had only a single 48x48-inch piece of …
The Pasta Bridge project is a chance for students in the Engineering Design 1 class to learn about structural systems. Students design and build a truss bridge made out of only pasta and hot glue. AÂ truss is a structural system made of elements arranged into interconnected triangles. Each finished bridge must weigh less than 250 …
Continue reading "Pasta and Hot Glue Teach Structural Systems"
This trimester marks the start of three Engineering Design 2 classes; one is focused on mechanisms, while the other two are focused on design, but all three have sights set on conquering a unique and daunting challenge. The two design-focused classes have begun the process of creating different types of flat-folding furniture. One class’ challenge …
Continue reading "Staffulty Perspectives: Brad Niven on T3 Engineering"
Mix some hot glue, uncooked spaghetti and a unit on truss bridges in Engineering Design 1 and what do you get? Unimposing little pasta bridges, which, despite their unlikely composition, prove deceptively strong. In fact, the structure that sophomore Jared, junior Ben and senior Alec produced stood tall under 11,488 grams -- that's 46 times …
Continue reading "Experiences: Glue + Pasta + The Right Design"
An Engineering and Design Update from Director of the Project Center Brad Niven Engineering Design 1 classes have started their first project: to design and build a truss bridge spanning 18 inches using dried spaghetti and hot glue. The bridge must weigh less than 250 grams and be at least 2 inches wide. Trusses are …
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