BLOSSOMS - Using Geometry to Design Simple Machines

Visit the MIT BLOSSOMS website at http://blossoms.mit.edu/

Video Summary: This video is meant to be a fun, hands-on session that gets students to think hard about how machines work. It teaches them the connection between the geometry that they study and the kinematics that engineers use -- explaining that kinematics is simply geometry in motion. In this lesson, geometry will be used in a way that students are not used to. The prerequisite here is a familiarity with the geometry of triangles and circles. This interactive learning video could be completed in an approximately one-hour class session or it could be presented over two class sessions, allowing more class time for students to engage in hands-on activities. Materials necessary for the hands-on activities include two options: pegboard, nails/screws and a small saw; or colored construction paper, thumbtacks and scissors. Some in-class activities for the breaks between the video segments include: exploring the role of geometry in a slider-crank mechanism; determining at which point to locate a joint or bearing in a mechanism; recognizing useful mechanisms in the students communities that employ the same guided motion they have been studying.

See the original video and more on MIT TechTV - http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/1966

Category:

Education

Tags:

• mit mittechtv
• mit techtv
• MIT BLOSSOMS
• STEM
• blended learning
• OER
• high school geometry
• triangles
• circles
• kinematics
• mechanism
• crank shaft
• crank pin
• connecting rod
• four bar mechanism
• rotary motion
• oscillating motion

[Manaloja48]

You don't need a peg board, as he mentioned; you could use construction paper. I didn't see a big jump, it's just a different problem (and the viewer's turn to figure something out).

[abpccpba]

Instructor:

I am 14:49 into your presentation and all I have heard is some one preaching to the choir.

? How many Pastinesses have a black board, peg board and who has seen a dump truck up close? Your concept for Blossom is great. I think the teacher should think more about his student in there context and not so much of his.

P.S Why the computer animation of a air engine and the big jump to a abstract dump truck?

Paul