Students design, build and evaluate a spring-powered mouse trap racer. For evaluation, teams equip their racers with an intelligent brick from a LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT Education Base Set and a HiTechnic acceleration sensor. They use...

Through investigating the nature, sources and level of noise produced in their environment, students are introduced to the concept of noise pollution. They learn about the undesirable and disturbing effects of noise and the resulting...

Students act as civil engineers developing safe railways as a way to strengthen their understanding of parallel and intersecting lines. Using pieces of yarn to visually represent line segments, students lay down "train tracks" on a...

Students discover the mathematical constant phi, the golden ratio, through hands-on activities. They measure dimensions of "natural objects"--a star, a nautilus shell and human hand bones--and calculate ratios of the measured values,...

Students learn about the mechanical advantage offered by pulleys in an interactive and game-like manner. By virtue of the activity's mechatronic presentation, they learn to study a mechanical system not as a static image, but rather as a...

Students learn about the concept of pushing, as well as the relationship between force and mass. Students practice measurement skills using pan scales and rulers to make predictions about mass and distance. A LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT robot is...

Students learn various topics associated with the circle through studying a clock. Topics include reading analog time, understanding the concept of rotation (clockwise vs. counter-clockwise), and identifying right angles and straight...

Students practice their multiplication skills using robots with wheels built from LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT kits. They brainstorm distance travelled by the robots without physically measuring distance and then apply their math skills to...

Students learn and practice how to find the perimeter of a polygonal shape. Using a ruler, they measure model rooms made of construction paper walls. They learn about other tools, such as a robot, that can help them take measurements....

Students solidify their understanding of the terms "circumference" and "rotation" through the use of LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT robotics components. They measure the circumference of robot wheels to determine how far the robot can travel during...

Students learn about the components and functions of biosensors. Using LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT robots and sensors, they discover how engineer-designed sensors play important roles in our daily lives, informing people of their surroundings...

Students act as chemical engineers and use LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT robotics to record temperatures and learn about the three states of matter. Properties of matter can be measured in various ways, including volume, mass, density and...

Students work as engineers to design and test trebuchets (in this case LEGO MINDSTORMS robots) that can launch objects. During the testing stage, they change one variable at a time to study its effect on the outcome of their designs....

Students discover how gears work and how they can be used to adjust a vehicle's power. Specifically, they learn how to build the transmission part of a vehicle by designing gear trains with different gear ratios.

Students explore materials engineering by modifying the material properties of water. Specifically, they use salt to lower the freezing point of water and test it by making ice cream. Using either a simple thermometer or a mechatronic...

Students investigate the materials properties-such as acoustical absorptivity, light reflectivity, thermal conductivity, hardness, and water resistancea-of various materials. They use sound, light and temperature sensors to collect data...

Working as a team, students discover that the value of pi (3.1415926) is a constant and applies to all different sized circles. The team builds a basic robot and programs it to travel in a circular motion. A marker attached to the robot...

Students use a simple seesaw to visualize solving a two- or three-step mathematics equation, while solving a basic structural engineering weight balance problem in the process. They solve two-step equations on a worksheet and attempt to...

Students learn about sound waves and use them to measure distances between objects. They explore how engineers incorporate ultrasound waves into medical sonogram devices and ocean sonar equipment. Students learn about properties, sources...

Students use data acquisition equipment to learn about force and displacement in regard to simple and complex machines. In the engineering world, materials and systems are tested by applying forces and measuring the resulting...

Students use three tracks marked on the floor, one in yards, one in feet and one in inches. As they start and stop a robot specific distances on a "runway," they can easily determine the equivalent measurements in other units by looking...