Pi-Sui Hsu questions a summer camp participant about his solar car design.
What provides the key to driving solar-powered model cars to the finish line?
Observations and questions, apparently.
At least that was the case for a dozen Rockford middle-schoolers who spent a week with Pi-Sui Hsu this June.
“The purpose of the summer program was to introduce students to the engineering design process,” says Hsu, an associate professor in the Department of Educational Technology, Research and Assessment. “We wanted to see how they engage in the process, and also how they learn from productive failure and improve from that.”
‘Gathering in a makerspace-like classroom at the Rockford Environmental Science Academy, the preteens spent the first two days hearing about their task for the week and the engineering concepts behind it before collaborating in small teams to design their…
