Campus Visit

ENGINEERING EXPERIENCE:  Saturday morning we pointed our car in the direction of the University of Washington campus for a special event, Engineering Discovery Days.

We parked in the northeast part of the campus and made our way to the information booth. There, we picked up a map showing us which building on campus were involved in the event. There were so many things to see and do, it would have been impossible to fit it all into the four-hour time frame. However, we covered a lot of ground, as the photos will show and the kids will tell you. 

We started out by visiting some tents outside of the mechanical engineering building. There, we learned about carbon fiber and composite cars ...

 and concrete canoes!

The kids tested their engineering chops by building a small structure which was then tested on an earthquake simulator.

Their structure swayed, but it didn't collapse!

Next, we went into the mechanical engineering building. 

In one lab, we learned how sound waves produce specific patterns.

In the same building, we had a tour of WOOF3D, a 3D printing lab that is an interdisciplinary effort. 
          
They had a number of items on display which had been printed on-site. They included everything from art objects to prehistoric bones to prosthetics. 

The young man hosting the tour of the printing lab told us a lot about the different types of materials they use in the printers, and the pros and cons of each.
               
From there, we found our way to an off-the-beaten-path lab all about marine renewable energy. 

 We had the place to ourselves, and a number of enthusiastic engineering students taught CJ and Annabelle about harnessing (water) wave energy.

Associate Professor Brian Polagye showed us some neat videos of the Azura Wave Energy Converter that's operating off Hawaii right now. How fortunate we were to have such knowledgeable people introducing us to such an interesting, important topic. 

Our next stop was the Paul G. Allen Center. It was our very first visit there.

 It has a lovely, sky-high atrium in the center. 

 Annabelle's hair was standing on end at this display. 

The kids were happy to be handed some UW M&Ms.

And they were also happy to get a chance to check out some science-based games thanks to the Center For Game Science.

We visited with some engineering students who were working on a system that incorporates atmospheric sensors (humidity and air pollutants, for instance) into a cell-phone sized unit.

 I asked about the cost of producing such a unit, and it sounded like it could be done for under $100.
The kids each even got to play a banana piano. Yes, really!

When we got out of the Allen Center, we found that the skies were turning blue. Hooray!

We headed toward some tents in the grassy space at Rainier Vista, just south of Drumheller Fountain. 

There, the kids made some silly putty (a combination of glue, Borax and water).

We also talked with a club that is competing in a build a better Mars rover competition. 

And CJ and Annabelle worked together to build a liquid (water) fueled rocket. They named it Rocket McRocketface.

It flew about 200 feet, I'd estimate. 

In the Electrical Engineering Building, I couldn't help but notice a posting about a glowing pickle. Intrigued, we had to track it down.

Turns out a pickle can rather dramatically have electricity flowing through it which does, in fact, cause it to glow. And smoke. Have you ever smelled a smoking pickle? I didn't think so.

Here's what CJ had to say about his experience there. ...

The University of Washington recently held an event called the Engineering Discovery Days. According to UW's website, "At Engineering Discovery Days, students and faculty from all UW engineering departments share their work with students, teachers, families and the community." This means that they share their ideas and inventions with visitors looking to learn more about engineering at the University of Washington. There were several different booths and inventions that we saw at the Engineering Discovery Days, and I would like to share some of them with you. 

One of the first inventions we saw upon entry was a unique mix of concrete and styrofoam. That might sound odd to many people, but it turned out to have certain uses, on of which was making concrete boats. As we noticed at the stand, the solidified mixture could actually float, making for stronger boats. At a nearby stand, there was a station where we could hear different aquatic noises, and try to match them up with environmental sounds or animals. As it turns out, seals can actually be very loud and annoying, while whales make countless different cries and calls.

There was another station where we could build small structures, and see how well it would hold up against a shaking machine, simulating the effects of an earthquake. There were multiple different construction pieces, and we could see which setups were more effective than others (for example: with two supporting rods work better poking diagonally into the roof than poking straight up into the roof.) In the end, our building almost fell, but it manages to stick together. I think it would be interesting to see other people's buildings and how well they did against the machine?

One of my favorite parts of the event was a station where we could actually build miniature soda-bottle rockets, fill them with fuel, put them in a launcher, and see how far they would launch. Annabelle and I built our rocket with three relatively small fins on it, and we labeled the rocket the "Rocket McRocketface," named after the notorious Boaty McBoatface. Rocket McRocketFace managed to fly pretty far into the field, and we got to see other people's rocket designs, which had varying degrees of success.

Lastly, my favorite part of the event was probably the "Glowing Pickles" event, where they would actually show us how to make parts of pickles glow (no, seriously.) The showcase started out with our instructors telling us why lightning shoots to the ground, due to the electrons moving from a place with high potential to a place with low potential. They told us that something similar would happen with how they make pickles glow. They took different pickles, which included zesty, sweet, and regular dill pickles. When they hooked the pickles up to a machine, one end of the pickle would glow. Apparently, the reason this happens is because again, the electrons are moving from a place with high potential from a place with low potential, with the amount of juice in the pickle allowing them to travel better. In order from least glow to most glow, the pickles were sweet, dill, and zesty.

And here are Annabelle's observations ...

Engineering Weekend was an event at the University of Washington. They have exhibits about different kinds of engineering all across campus! That means there’s a lot to look at. I’ll tell you about what I saw.

The first place we went was to a station about concrete that can float. Crazy, right? Well, this concrete had little pieces of Styrofoam as opposed to rocks. They’re working on making a canoe out of the concrete!

Another tent we went to had us make “silly polymers”, homemade Silly Putty! All you need to do is get some Elmer’s white glue in a disposable cup. Then you add food coloring to your choice. Then, take some borax in a cup. Then add just enough water do dissolve it and pour it into your glue. Then stir it with a Popsicle stick and watch it turn into putty! Right next to that tent was one where you could build a rocket! CJ and I chose a slim bottle and put a nosecone and three fins on it. We named it Rocket McRocketFace. Rocket McRocketFace was one of the most stable rockets I saw! It was really fun at Engineering weekend, and that’s not even the whole campus!

As many times as I've been to the UW campus, I feel like I've only seen a fraction of it. Each trip is like a new adventure.

For instance, I'd never seen the columns pictures above before. We found them by accident, traveling a path with a 'what's down here?' mentality.

 What a great day!