Engineering

 Engineering!  Just for gear heads?  NOT!

This year's engineering is going to be different from years past.

Solve a Problem

Can you think of a problem that you would like to fix?  Want your pet to be able to come into and out of your room -- with the door closed -- without getting up?  Want to keep the dogs out of the chicken food?  Or, on a bigger scale, are there folk who need help watering their gardens for some reason?  One of the engineering challenges this year invites you to design something that can solve a problem!

Do something simple but fun!

The other engineering challenge invites you to do something simple... as challengingly as possible!  Want to pour a bowl of cereal?  Well push this lever, and it will knock a ball down a ramp which rolls into a cup that drops down pulling a string that winds a spring that releases a weight which falls onto a pedal and pushes the box of cereal over so your bowl fills.  Voila, breakfast!  Simple really... well, not really!

Are you an artist?  Engineering is for you too!  Engineers design things for a user, that user is most often human.  Humans like things to look nice as well as work well!  Understanding proportions is a key element in art, it is also central to engineering.  Do you know who painted The Mona Lisa?  Some say Davinci was an artist, but engineers claim him as one of their own.  He drew a small sketch of a bridge, so accurately, with such precision, that an engineering student from MIT was able to measure his drawing and build a model, and it is one of the most attractive as well as effective simple bridge designs ever!

Artists and Engineers both need to study things as they are in order to make decisions on what they want to create.

I have a problem I need solved!

My sheep waste a LOT of hay, and what they don't waste, they eat too quickly.  Soon, they aren't going to fit through the door of their house!  They look like cotton balls with short toothpicks stuck in the bottom as it is.  I have tried all kinds of hay feeders designed for sheep and all kinds of other animals, but they still just gobble up what I give them too quickly or pull it out onto the floor.  I don't have time to feed them three times per day, in fact, I would rather feed them once every three days, and the time I spend feeding them now, I could play with them!  Anyone want to work on solving this problem for me?

So, be sure you have the engineering packets, which are in the cooler on my porch, and everyone, please join us for a virtual Introduction to this project on Thursday, Jan. 20!