A Shodor Education Foundation SUCCEED Workshop
Engineers in Training Engineers in Training   Exploratory Engineering:
Trial,Error and the Scientific Method

If at first you don't succeed. Try, try again!

Have you ever built a tower - out of sand, or blocks, or soda cans? Did you keep building it, taller and taller until it fell down, only to start again and built it just a little bit taller the next time?

Almost everyone has been a 'trial and error' engineer at some time, but a good engineer must also be a good scientist, combining your experiments in building with careful observation of results!

In Takes Two to Topple, students use trial-and-error testing along with observation to build a hypothesis on the principles behind structural balance.

With In Straws We Trussed, students experiment with structural design in the construction of a pin-and-beam truss, directly observing the concepts of tension, compression, buckling and strength of structural elements.


Developed by Dr. Garrett R. Love for
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