Thursdays of the first trimester of the STEM Capstone Lab are our "Work and Learn" days where students have the opportunity to tinker and skill build .... and give a taste of what second trimester will be like.
Joy Stewart wrote a blog posting of her observations during this week's Work and Learn. Below is an excerpt of her post: ...I think today was a much more relaxed day for most of the STEM students. Thursdays are our Work-and-Learn days. It's the one day of the week where we definitely have class time to work on our project. Mostly, Thursdays are supposed to be where you have something physically to work or tinker with. But not everyone has something like that in this stage of their project, so they just do research and do other things to make progress in their project. Work-and-Learn days for me are primarily spent going through my coding tutorials, and testing what I coding. But it's really cool to see what everyone else is working one. One girl, who's working to improve prosthetics, was 3D printing a hand today, doing it in parts. So printing each joint separately so they can be mobile. Some people were sawing or drilling, or working with circuits. Since this time isn't usually focused on completing assignments, but just making general progress, it's much more relaxed. And it's the only time of the week we definitely have time to work on our projects in class. Anyways, that's all for tonight. Until next week... Goodnight and Thanks for Reading, Joy S.
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Students in the STEM Capstone Lab are encouraged to reach out to experts in the field to gain ideas, exposure and feedback on their work. Some students have had excellent outcomes as a result of their efforts.
Christian has had the opportunity to work with scientists at NOAA and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation on his project on oysters and microbeads. Read his recent blog post below to learn about a productive off-campus visit! "Today I went to the Cooperative Oxford Laboratory located in Oxford, MD. While I was there, I was able to ask scientist that worked at the lab questions about how to conduct my experiment with microbeads. All of the scientist were really interested in my topic because they wanted to know the outcome and told me to keep them informed on the progress of my project. Mr. Leight, who I met at the lab gave me a tour of the facility, helped me brainstorm ideas on how to make my project simple, and how to make the experiment work. While I was there, I was able to solve some of my problems like how to separate the microbeads from personal care products and how to keep the oysters alive for the duration of the experiment. Right now, I have two tanks that I am loaning from Cooperative Oxford Laboratory that I will be using for my project. Next week, I will be working on setting up the tanks for the oysters because there are a lot of components that I need to get. I will probably will not be getting the oysters for a couple weeks because I will need to make sure the water's salinity level is good for the oysters that I will be introducing to the tank. Hopefully next week I can achieve at least half of these goals." This week, students are submitting literature reviews that document their research so far. Below is Devan Jones' reflection on the value of this work for him. Enjoy!
This week was the definition of The Grind, I had to outline, compose, and correct my Literature Review and though it was a lot of work I learned a lot about my own project and provided a great outline to move forward from. All week I was able to get sources with more information that I could use to create my system but also why I am creating my system. This research project would be intended for places that endure large amounts of perception each year along with their inability to generate clean energy efficiently. I researched places that rained a lot because my project could maximize its efficiency by having the most amount of rainwater run through the system as possible; Potential energy = water. In my Literature Review I am able to clearly state my "Why, What, and How" in essay formate while using my research to justify it. This helps not only others trying to understand my project and its reasoning but also help myself to better understand why I am doing this and how. I am not looking to understand more about the materials I will be using as well as how to actually build my system correctly and with the right dimensions. All in all I am ready to proceed on to more difficult material when trying to understand the Calculus and math equations involved in calculating efficiency with a turbine of this specific nature: |
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