Manufacturing
Cast Ring
Students learn about current casting technology by working with room temperature vulcanizing (RTV) silicone and a two-part quick-hardening plastic.
Catalog Purchase Orders
Students learn how to correctly and accurately fill out business and industry order forms, learn fundamental terminology, then practice locating and ordering items from suppliers’ catalogs.
CNC Activity Introduces the Flatbed Router
Create awesome widgets. From sketching to CAD to CNC routing. This activity for middle school through college levels shows students the unlimited possibilities and applications of the CNC flatbed router.
CNC Programming
A activity that doesn't require the use of costly CNC (computer numerical controlled) equipment teaches students how they would program a numerically controlled milling machine. They also learn to decode a simple program and draw by hand the part that it would create.
Conveyor Systems
Students learn how the three different types of conveyor systems work, along with their advantages and disadvantages. Then, using simple materials, they build a compressed-air conveyor system and test their design.
Design
and Build Gumball Machines
Students get great experience with
research and design, problem solving, use of jigs and fixtures, and the details
of the mass production process.
Designing and Testing a Model Car Frame
In this activity, students explore "crash worthiness" aspects of automobile design by designing, constructing, and testing a balsa wood scale-model car frame.
Factory Layout and Planning
Discusses the different advantages of process plants and product plants, and eight essential qualities of safe and maximally efficient factories. Middle schoolers then design their own toy factory layout. Project includes machine template, room patterns and accessories.
Gears
What a gear is, how are they used, how they work and how to figure out gear ratios are all covered in this project. Students then build their own machines and measure the gear ratio of their gear train.
Industrial Design
Extensive background on the industrial design process, plus hands-on activities that involve sketching product improvements and devising solutions for a coin-retrieval puzzle.
Industrial Design: Packaging Design
Students develop a solution to a packaging design problem by first creating a design portfolio of sketches, then a technical drawing of the best solution, and finally the package itself using simple, inexpensive materials.
Manufacturing: Angles and Lines
A brief discussion of the key role that precision plays in modern manufacturing, plus three activities that give students practice with solving for missing angles.
Manufacturing: Criteria Ranking
After learning the principles of manufacturing design as determined by such criteria as product safety, reliability, durability, comfort, styling, and cost, students build a cereal box marble maze.
Mass Producing a Paper-Cup Dispenser
Mass-producing this paper-cup dispenser teaches both mass-production procedures and woodworking skills.
Materials Science
Middle schoolers learn about the basic types of materials and their properties, how to measure and safely use basic tools, and how to design and construct a prototype and final project using these materials.
Materials Science Research: The Hygrometer
Students make a simple hygrometer using pieces of wood, wire, rubber bands and staples.
Plaster Balloon Sculpture
This is not an oxymoron! In the activity, students learn about chemistry and materials processing technology, and use mathematics in the course of making a simple plaster sculpture.
Pneumatics
Background on the use of pneumatics in industry, along with an introduction to the components of a pneumatic system (regulator, pressure gauge, valve and cylinder). Plus procedure for constructing a durable pneumatics mockup board and a pneumatic-circuit-design activity for students.
Question Dice
The design process is not a crap shoot. A big part of solving problems is asking the right questions. This project describes how to make a set of wooden dice that ask students the how, when, where, why and more about designing manufacturing products and processes.
Sim CIM Sundaes
First students learn about the history of automation -- from slow-moving assembly lines to computer-integrated manufacturing (CIM). Then their mouths will water they work as part of a team that simulates the computer control of a factory assembly line. The end result is a delicious, custom-made sundae for everyone!
A Skateboard Project That Really Rocks!
Enthusiastic students design, construct and decorate their own skateboards in an activity that teaches about the machines and processes involved in working with plastics.
Space Dock & Worm Hole
In manufacturing, if an error is made and not corrected at the beginning of an assembly, the error may grow and grow. This concept is explored by having students plot the travel path of a space ship to its home base. The "Worm Hole" activity helps students locate points on a grid while using a protractor and ruler.
Three-Piece Puzzle
In the course of making wooden puzzles, students learn about the various roles involved in industrial production (procurement, product engineering, process engineering, plant engineering, personnel management and administration), as well as about such concepts as prototype, quality control, and industrial safety.
Time-Motion Study
Students set up, perform and analyze time-motion studies like those performed in
industry.
Toy Truck Project
This activity uses inexpensive 2 x 4 lumber and is well suited for mass production.
Using Jigs and Fixtures: A Design Brief
Introductory information on the use of jigs and fixtures in the manufacturing process, plus design of jigs and fixtures to be used in student manufacture of a Ball Drop Game.
Wooden Pizza Cutter
A clever wood project teaches students about rotary routing jigs and mass production techniques—and provides them with a tool for slicing a treat!
Subject Codes:
- A — Applied Academics
- B — Building Trades / Construction
- C— Communication
- D — Drafting / Design / CAD
- E — Electricity / Electronics / Computer Technology
- G — Grading / Assessment
- M — Manufacturing
- PE — Power / Energy
- P — Problem Solving / Pre-Engineering
- S — Great for Substitutes
- T — Transportation
- W — Woodworking
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