National Engineering Week was created 70 years ago to demonstrate to parents, teachers, and students how important a technical education is for our students.
It’s a day were local engineering companies, college engineering organizations, and museums host engineering events, science displays, and outdoor fairs to promote math, science, and technology to their local communities.
You’ll find paper airplane contests by NASA engineers and human powered helicopters flying in shopping malls (no kidding!) We’re going to join in the fun with a cool set of hands-on projects you can do right at home.
One time, as a demo for the public, Cal Poly set up their in-progress gigantic Human Powered Helicopter. Here’s a video of a test flight:
And here’s a video of the actual winner (not Cal Poly!) who created a design that flew and won the competition:
Teaching Innovation
Okay, so how can you share engineering with your kids and students? When I was a university instructor, one of the hardest things to teach was innovation and creativity. One way that I did this is with Odyssey of the Mind activities. Here are three of them you can do with your kids. Normally, kids are only given 8-10 minutes per activity, however you can do these activities as long as your kids are interested and excited about completing each challenge. Offer prizes if you feel that would add value to the challenge as well!
Going Further
If you’d like a more in-depth project to do with your kids, here are some of our most popular on our website:
You can learn more about National Engineers Week here!
Initially, it’s just the items in the material list but if you’d like to expand and develop the project further, go for it!
can i use legos for the zipline and use bubblewrap too?
Thank you for the your help!
it’s working now
Try logging in again… the video is working over here.
sorry but the video does not work
Cool ! 🙂