Hi. It's Paul Andersen. And this is disciplinary core idea ETS1B. It's
on developing possible solutions. So in the last video I talked about really defining
a problem. Making sure that you understand all of the criteria and the constraints of
a proper solution. But in this video I'm going to talk about coming up with possible solutions.
And there's a famous problem called the candle problem. And the candle problem is asked like
this. Imagine I give you some matches, tacks and a candle. And I want you to affix the
candle to the wall and then light it. Well I'm giving you a problem now. And so the next
phase would be pretty open ended. You're going to come up with as many solutions as you possibly
can. And so what are some possible solutions you might come up with? Maybe you'll melt
the candle and try to stick that to the wall. Maybe you'll build a ledge out of the tacks.
Maybe you'll try to tac the wick and then light it. Maybe you'll try to kind of tac
the candle. Maybe you'll try to make an adhesive out of the matches. Maybe you'll try to use
the box that the tacks are in. And so it's a real brainstorming process when you're coming
up with as many solutions as you possibly can. Now in this problem there's only one
of those that will actually work. And that is to use the box. So what's our first step
then once we've really defined what the problem is and what are the constraints and criteria
of a proper solution? It's this whole brainstorming process where we try to come up with as many
solutions as we can. And this is just open ended. Try to come up with as many solutions
as you can. Your students should be fairly familiar with this process. But after you've
done that you want to kind of do what we did in the last video. You want to start talking
about the constraints and the criteria. Remember the constraints are the needs of a solution.
And the criteria are the things that we want. And so as you start looking through proper
solution, proper problem, you're going to find that some of these solutions simply are
not going to work. And so you're going to throw those out. And we're going to have some
solutions that we're then going to compare. And so a good way to do that is to just put
it up on a whiteboard. And then we're going to create some models. Now those models could
be physical in nature. We could actually build them. They could be scale models. Graphical
models. Maybe it's just data. Maybe it's a mathematical model. But we're going to start
developing as many of these models that we can so we can start using that to compare
each of our different solutions. And so a really cool thing in engineering that helps
out is computer assisted design. And so we can model proper solutions and then we can
actually build them. So we can use computer assisted manufacturing, 3D printers to actually
build a lot of these things. And then we can see which one's going to work before we actually
go to building a solution. And so how do you teach this in schools? What is your teaching
progression? Well in the lower elementary grades you want your students sketching as
much as they can. You want them drawing out possible solutions to problems that you are
giving them. And you want that process to be totally open-ended. We don't judge solutions
at this point. Next thing is you move into the upper elementary school. You want to go
kind of through this process when you're coming up with solutions. Students should be doing
research. Now you could do research on the internet, it's a great place to start. But
you also may want to do some market research asking people questions. From there you go
into a brainstorming process where you try to come up with as many solutions as you can.
And then finally you want your students building models. Now those models don't have to be
physical models. They could be mathematical models as well. As we move into middle school
then we want to start going through this idea of prototyping. And what is prototyping? Well
it's iterative. In other words it's going to go over and over and over. And so where
does it begin? It begins with a design. So we've done the research. We've done some brainstorming.
Now we've got a design. What we want to do is test that design. And so there's many ways
that we can test it. And we'll talk more about that in the next video. But after you've tested
it based on the results, we're going to modify that solution. Or modify that model. From
there we're going to rebuild it. And then we're going to test our design. And then we're
going to modify it and rebuild it. And this goes over and over and over again. And you
really got to get into the prototyping as quickly as you can. When you move into high
school you want to start tackling complex problems and complex solutions. Now in engineering
they use what's called a systems approach. And so if you have a really complex solution
or a complex problem like building a space station, they break that into smaller groups.
You're going to have some research and design. You're going to have the people working on
the electrical engineering. The mechanical engineering. People working with the astronauts
themselves. And so there's a lot of different pieces that are coming together. And a couple
of the tools that are helpful are models. So building proper models and then simulation.
And so let me give you an example of this. These are some buildings that were built.
And then they modeled traffic patterns. And so where people are going to walk from building
to building. And then after you've done that it would make sense to put in sidewalks after
you know where people are going to walk. And this is a flow chart that really gets to that.
So if you're doing this systems engineering, if you're trying to solve these complex problems,
you start with the real system. You can preform experiments on that. So we can gather data
based on the system itself. But you also make a model, perform simulations, construct theories.
And all of these are working together to improve the model, improve the theories, so we can
come up with a better solution. And so as our solutions become more complex, we need
more tools. But it's the same process that we're using in those lower elementary grades.
And I hope that was helpful.