Bridges, skyscrapers, helicopters, and nightlights are all very useful things! But how did somebody come up with the idea for these things, and how did people figure out how to build them?
In 3D Engineering: Design and Build Your Own Prototypes, young readers tackle real-life engineering problems by figuring out real-life solutions. Kids apply science and math skills to create prototypes for bridges, instruments, alarms, and more. Prototypes are preliminary models used by engineers -- and kids -- to evaluate ideas and to better understand how things work.
Using a structured engineering design process, kids learn how to brainstorm, build a prototype, test a prototype, evaluate, and re-design. Projects include designing a cardboard chair to understand the stiffness of structural systems and designing and building a set of pan pipes to experiment with pitch and volume in music.
Creating prototypes is a key step in the engineering design process. While many will not work as planned, this is exactly how engineers learn and make improvements to their designs. By trying and retrying, kids learn the value of persistence. 3D Engineering: Design and Build Your Own Prototypes empowers kids to discover the mechanics of the world we know.
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