Contact: Maridith Geuder
For two upper-level engineering classes at Mississippi State University, a recent project involving some high tech principles actually was fun and games.
Their assignment: design a computer-controlled toy called "I-Float." Instead of following a textbook, Filip S. To challenged his students to develop the knowledge needed to succeed in producing a floating ball toy.
To succeed in the challenge, students had to master a set of objectives developed by the associate professor of agricultural and biological engineering. They were asked to design the computer hardware and software to float a Styrofoam ball inside a four-foot Plexiglas tube.
While each team could decide the height at which the ball would float, they had to assure that it reached the prescribed height and floated in a steady manner.
"It sounded like an easy project in the beginning but was much more complicated than it seems," To said. "In addition to understanding computer hardware, software and laws of physics, the classes had to analyze and implement ideas into a working system."
To said each team had a different solution to the problem and each regarded the challenges differently. One team insisted writing computer code for the sonar was the most difficult, while another insisted it was developing computer hardware.
The classes are structured "to provide an environment in which students learn by doing and solving problems," he explained. "Instead of simply presenting a set of ideas, the instructor must act to facilitate progress."
To said this approach to teaching "allows students to learn by filling in knowledge gaps the problem exposes.
"They don't get stuck on a particular problem for long because they have to improvise and move on. They learn everything they'd learn from a textbook, but they have to go beyond it."