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What do I include in a High School Engineering Tool Kit
5

What do I include in a High School Engineering Tool Kit

What do I include in a High School Engineering Tool Kit

(OP)
We have a High school engineering club and I am putting together three "tool kits" to be used by the club. I have $500.00 per kit to spend. The goal of the club is to introduce students to all branches of engineering so the supplies should be general / diverse. I need ideas on what to include in the kit. We are thinking a multimeter, solar cells, wire, a small pump, hand tools. Any other ideas on what I should include?

RE: What do I include in a High School Engineering Tool Kit

Sadly, I'll admit the 1st thing I'd look into is if there are any regulatory/health and safety/OSHA... rules or regs on what they can or can't be given.

When you say tool kits, it seems you mean just not the tools but also basic supplies for doing experiments?  

For electrical I'd throw in some bulbs, led's, maybe even capacitors, solenoids, motors etc.  We used to have some 'modular' bits and pieces that you could build circuits with then pull apart.

For mechanical, as well as a bunch of fasteners how about something like a mecano/erector set kit with gear, pulleys...

Make sure and include appropriate metrology equipment, a good steel rule, tape measure, calipers (real Verniers maybe without the digital read out just to make them think), Micrometer, level, feeler gauges...  Your budget may not extend to all of these but depending what kind of projects they'll be doing and what they already have available in the physics room... you can down select.

Posting guidelines FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm? (probably not aimed specifically at you)
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?

RE: What do I include in a High School Engineering Tool Kit

And maybe you can pick up some of the stuff as "contributions" from companies with a civic sense (promise a newsletter with credits that the students can write up... a monthly update on projects, skills learned, etc.)

 

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

RE: What do I include in a High School Engineering Tool Kit

(OP)
Great ideas! Thanks. Any ideas on items to include related to biomedical engineering? Lot's of student interest in this topic... maybe pumps and valves would do?  

RE: What do I include in a High School Engineering Tool Kit

Well, I vaguely recall a fad of folks at school building 'hands' (or at least the 'bones') out of technic Lego, adding some string ligaments and putting a glove on them.

So from the point of artificial limbs you could to crazy with various linkages etc.  Playing around with some pneumatics & hydraulics could be cool too.  Again technic lego used to have that, and now they have robots too.

Posting guidelines FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm? (probably not aimed specifically at you)
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?

RE: What do I include in a High School Engineering Tool Kit

How about an Arduino board http://www.arduino.cc/ , a mini breadboard, and a selection of wires and components like LEDs, buzzers, resistors, capacitors, etc.  

RE: What do I include in a High School Engineering Tool Kit

I like jhardy1's suggestion of the Arduino.
I used it a few times before. The first time I built an autonomus mobile robot. Was lots of fun!

Don't forget http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_rocket

Or how about a model of an IC engine. Or a model of a DC motor....

I can think of tons of engineering related things that would be great.
You could also consider stopping by a lotal hobby shop..

peace
Fe

RE: What do I include in a High School Engineering Tool Kit

How about a hand held calculator - kinda common across the board for Engineering...

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering

 

RE: What do I include in a High School Engineering Tool Kit

Biomedical engineering? get a copy of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin's excellent treatise on the subject, still considered one of the most authoritative works.  

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

RE: What do I include in a High School Engineering Tool Kit

Grey tape
Blue roll
Swarfega

- Steve
 

RE: What do I include in a High School Engineering Tool Kit

-Soldering iron
-Scale
-Safety glasses
-TheTick's list

RE: What do I include in a High School Engineering Tool Kit

What about popsicle sticks, hot glue guns, ping-pong balls, etc?

"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."


Have you read FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies to make the best use of these Forums?

RE: What do I include in a High School Engineering Tool Kit

I think the electrical/electronic work would be greatly enhanced by some ability for control and/or data acquisition. Arduino sounds like a great option.  You might also consider a Labview education kit:
http://sine.ni.com/nips/cds/view/p/lang/en/nid/14681

Add in some thermocouples, accelerometers, relays, etc. and you can accomplish a lot both in terms of electronics and in terms of expanding on mechanical/physical experiments through data acquisition and analysis.

On the mechanical side, consider a vacuum pump or vacuum generator if you have access to compressed air.  With some plastic sheet, tape, and creativity you can use that to do composite layup work or form wood/plastic sheets over molds.
 

RE: What do I include in a High School Engineering Tool Kit

Tools for hand drafting (triangles, scales, protractor, compass, etc.)  And a drafting textbook.  I just got one for $1.00 from Amazon.

RE: What do I include in a High School Engineering Tool Kit

Is it sad that the first things that came to mind were Gantt charts, Powerpoint slides, and a coffee mug?

RE: What do I include in a High School Engineering Tool Kit

Engineering pad so they'll learn how to graph rather than let a PC do it for them.

RE: What do I include in a High School Engineering Tool Kit

I see lots of emphasis on old school / analog / traditional engineering and drafting tools.  While that's great stuff to learn, I have a hard time imagining high school kids getting excited and/or joining a club which furnishes drafting sets and hand tools (although I do recall haveing a plastic drafting board in elementary school).  Am I off base?

Question for the OP... Can you give a little more detail on what sorts of things the club does; where they take direction from or what they're working towards?

RE: What do I include in a High School Engineering Tool Kit

humbug....rockets will get them watching....

peace
Fe

RE: What do I include in a High School Engineering Tool Kit

Thermite!

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.

RE: What do I include in a High School Engineering Tool Kit

Excerpts from engineering design manuals.

EIT with BS in Civil/Structural engineering.

RE: What do I include in a High School Engineering Tool Kit

A book on Ethics.  Many in our Profession have none.

RE: What do I include in a High School Engineering Tool Kit

Meccano and/or Erector stuff. Lots around used at very good prices. It will come in useful for building structures for all the fancy electronics, chemical, biological work, and someone may get interested in mechanical engineering along the way.

HAZOP at www.curryhydrocarbons.ca

RE: What do I include in a High School Engineering Tool Kit

Take your $500 to a junk yard and start salvaging things that can be taken apart to see how they work. Set up some of the salvaged devices and set up fixtures to take measurements of force/temperature/pressure etc. Then you will need to lead discussions on various aspects of how that particular device works. One lesson could be all around an electric power window motor. Get two and take one apart for demonstration about the gearing. All you need to do is explain how an engineer influenced the parts design.  

RE: What do I include in a High School Engineering Tool Kit

Heck, don't spend any money, just ask the junkyard for some loners... tell them they can have it all back once you're done with it. Dismantled if they like.
Maybe there is a lot of stuff "beyond economical repair" that can be donated and fixed for some money.
$500 isn't a lot to splash around and most will probably go on stationary and sundries.....

Oh, hang on, this is $500 per kit? That makes a difference. That sounds quite generous but.....good tools cost money.
 

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

RE: What do I include in a High School Engineering Tool Kit

Took kit, eh? How about the following:

- A multimeter
- A soldering iron
- A TI-86 programmable graphing calculator with DataMate
- Computer interface cable for said calculator
- A thermocouple (http://www.vernier.com/products/sensors/temperature-sensors/tca-bta/)
- A force sensor (http://www.vernier.com/products/sensors/force-sensors/dfs-bta/)
- A photogate (http://www.vernier.com/products/sensors/vpg-btd/)
- A vernier caliper

That should burn through about $500 and get some pretty cool tools.

RE: What do I include in a High School Engineering Tool Kit

That Vernier line of products looks pretty cool.

Is there any programming / data processing capability with the DataMate software?  An advantage of the LabView series is that it would allow the computer oriented kids to do some object programming in a common software suite.

Does anybody have sufficient experience with these systems to compare DataMate / Labview / Arduino kits?   

RE: What do I include in a High School Engineering Tool Kit

If there is any money left over, two 6 meter retractable tape measures (as used on American Hot Rod, with a 1/4inch felt tip pen, to layout the frame so it is "exact"), 1/4" felt tip pen, file, hammers & paint.
Oh, and a Poster.
The poster is to accustom them to the ways of management communication. My favourite management poster is the one that says "The customer pays the bills", something management always forget come pay review or bonus time: they act then like the money is coming out of their own pockets.

The poster showing the simple rules:
  • Measure twice
  • Cut once
  • File to shape.
  • Bash to fit
  • paint to cover.
Job done.

Note (include on poster): when using a hammer, don't force it, get a bigger hammer.

For the ladies, a selection of Craftsman screwdrivers to be used as cold chisels or pry bars and returned under guarantee when broken, and some well honed wood chisels to be used as screwdrivers, tin openers etc.


 

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

RE: What do I include in a High School Engineering Tool Kit

As you plan what tools to put in your kit, think ahead as to what projects or activities you want to work on. THEN you look at what tools/equipment is needed to complete these tasks. I have taught Ind. Arts for thirty plus years and a lot of projects can have engineering impacts on students. I teach POE now so for sure you need calculators to do the math that comes with any engineering study.

Good Luck,
MrL68

RE: What do I include in a High School Engineering Tool Kit

If you have $1,500 to spend on 3 kits, I'd make a mechanical kit, electrical kit, and perhaps structural kit.  Each one would have unique items in the kit, specific to the area of study.

"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."


Have you read FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies to make the best use of these Forums?

RE: What do I include in a High School Engineering Tool Kit

One of my "mustering out" assignments at a job long gone was to develop a list of tools to be purchased for our electromechanical laboratory.

Unfortunately for you, I've long since lost the list, but most of the line items came from the Snap-On catalog, and the total list price came to a little over $5000.  .. when that was a lot of money, mind you.

I thought it was total busywork and a complete waste of time.

To my utter amazement, they bought the entire lot, complete and unmodified, after my departure.

I know that because I got a call from the surviving lab tech asking why I had put a five pound ball peen hammer on the list; he'd never seen one so big.   The remainder of the conversation went like this:
me: "Have you used it?"
him: "Yes."
me: "End of Discussion."

 

Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

RE: What do I include in a High School Engineering Tool Kit

Essential to have something you can make dents with.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

RE: What do I include in a High School Engineering Tool Kit

Dents?  I thought those were field adjustments?

"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."


Have you read FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies to make the best use of these Forums?

RE: What do I include in a High School Engineering Tool Kit

Going inexpensive you can buy balsa wood and glue to build scaled down bridges.

Learn about Engineering at
http://www.whatisengineering.net/  

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