Each month, students have an opportunity to compete in a monthly engineering meet as part of our Engineering Challenge Program. At the meet, they are issued a design challenge, and they work in teams of 2-3 to meet that challenge. After 45 minutes, the designs are evaluated, and the meet winners are determined. All members of winning teams accumulate points over the season and are thus eligible to become grand winners of the Challenge.
The March Challenge was to create a marker that could draw the longest line using 1 mL of ink. Each group was given ink, a variety of absorbent materials like cotton, felt, sponge, and filter paper, as well as some glass, plastic and rubber tubing options for encasing the materials to make the marker. For the evaluations, a team representative drew lines until the marker line appeared to have white spotting or a non-distinct edge. The lines were added to get a total length, and the length determined the winners.
Thank you to Chris Connors, Anna Cotton, Catherine DeGrandpre, Dana Munn, and Dawne Nelson for working with me as a team to plan and provide these opportunities.
