|
That's
a tall order for any school, especially when the challenges of
language and culture must be overcome for much learning to take
place. But Kynerd has become
inspired - close to the point of jumping up and down by a recent
addition to his modular curriculum that transcends the language of
peoples with the languages of aerodynamics and physics and
user-friendly CAD/CAM programming. He is immersing students in an
Aerodynamics Wing Curriculum: a combination of basic physics,
aerodynamics, pre-engineering, 3D visualization, CAD, CAM,
production, re-engineering, and success, all rolled into a 15-hour,
three-week classroom module.
One portion of the program uses
ScreenCam demos of actual models to demonstrate how  variations
in parameters affect flight. The project was launched by module
designer/ programmer Richard Wong of IMS Technologies and Techno-isel,
manufacturers of the 11" x 9" DaVinci desktop mill that
many schools currently use for the CO2 car unit. The same
mill is used to machine the aircraft parts. The small, sophisticated
planes demonstrate differences in angle of attack, wing camber, wing
positioning, and more. Wong's narration explains the effects of each
change in parameters.
The opening scene shows examples of
radio-controlled planes with dramatically different characteristics,
as Wong's narration prompts students to consider which feature the
two planes have in common and how and why their differences affect
their performance. And, before they know it, they want to learn the
science in order to produce the exciting end result. Kynerd seizes
the opportunity, once Wong has become a "real person" to
the students using the module, to touch on programming as yet
another possibility in the world of work.
 Adding
activities, expanding experiences. The module materials also
contains a CD for the FoilSim program; a NASA educational tool the
agency says is designed "to solve for 2D, inviscid,
incompressible irratational flow about airfoils. Shapes include flat
plate, elliptical cross-section, and Joukowski family of airfoils.
Students can vary thickness, amber line, and angle of attack.
Intended for undergraduate study, it performs a conformal mapping
from flow around a circular cylinder with circulation."
A FoilSim can be downloaded from
NASA's Glenn Research Center at www.lerc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/aerosim/download.html
. It can also be run as an online Java applet. As does the CD, the
download includes a plotter view panel that graphs lift versus each
of the parameters stated above, surface pressure, and speed at
surface. It also has a baseball simulator, showing the airflow
characteristics at varying speeds and altitudes of fastballs,
screwballs, and curveballs. An online manual with airfoil and
baseball lessons is a click away, providing students with hours of
enhancement projects.
From a pedagogic viewpoint, the
"Wings" curriculum offers some distant advantages. Its
self-contained structure allows faculty to continue with other
work Kynerd runs 16 varied modules simultaneously
assured that the "Wings" students can grasp each lesson,
or "rewind" to cover a point again. From the very
beginning, all references in the sciences use the correct
terminology, preparing students so motivated to tansfer into further
science courses. Also, the results of the post-tests that follow
critical segments on scientific and technical principles are
teacher-monitored. Students who successfully complete the
instructional portion of the module but fail to assemble or balance
the plane such that it simply won't maintain flight attitude can
still have a quantifiable, working grade for the module. Since they
have learned the material, understood and applied the software, and
machined the parts to spec, the only negative reflection would be in
the inappropriate deviations for the "standard" wing
design.
A two-ring circus. The setup
of the actual design/machining self-teaching unit generates
immediate gratification for Kynerd's students. Half the screen shows
a demonstration of a curriculum step; the other side allows students
to duplicate the procedure in the user interface. The module
continues with setup procedures and safety precautions. And the more the students
watch-and-do, watch-and-do, the more excited they become for the
work and its possibilities.
 The first
phase of airfoil and fuselage design is done cookbook style, with
students choosing from among a group of real-world powered aircraft
airfoils, based on their previous lessons in aerodynamics.
Back-and-forth, back-and-forth goes the lesson, from one side of the
screen to the other, until the student masters programming the data
for the 3D coordinates of a basic wing shape, altering and comparing
changes in wireframe mode, and crating shaded surfaces of their
designs.
The practical half of each module
puts the tool to the material, testing the true mettle of student
designs. Manufacture can begin on either the airfoils or the
fuselage. The areodynamics package provides the parameters for the
wings and fuselage. One of the standard fuselage designs is machined
from balsa stock, mounted in a supplied retrofit of a school's
existing CO3 fixturing (also step-by-step on the screen),
with wing-insertion recesses customized to the student's chosen
angle of attack. One side is cut, the stock is flipped, the tool
path mirrored, and second-side cutting begins. The airfoils require
top and bottom toolpaths, since they are asymmetrical. Again, after
cutting the top of the foil, the stock is rotated and refixtured to
cut the bottom geometry. The module is set up to use a 0.25"
ball-nose end mill, again previewing each step onscreen. The program
backplots and verifies all toolpaths.
 No element in the initial learning
phase is left to the imagination. Each step is narrated as well as
visualized, using screen captures as exemplars for the students'
live action in the program on their active side of the screen. As
basics are mastered, the lessons shift from duplicating prepackaged
designs to assisting students to implement their own geometry to
create designs that are more advanced. It's from here that their
imaginations take off. Primed with the principles in earlier
units, knowledgeable in creating and altering the designs and then
create solid examples of the wings of their minds' eye for testing.
Once the parts are finished, they are
sanded, measured and assembled with guidance from Wong's videos.
After the airplane is finished and painted it must be rebalanced for
proper flight trajectory again with steps from accompanying videos.
The power to soar. Yes, the planes are powered only
by simple rubber-bands. But the students are powered/empowered by
positive experiences with hitherto unknown, unimaginable knowledge
which, as is its wont, stimulates them to increase the scope of
their educational possibilities. They've enjoyed the success
of understanding physical principles and flight principles. "When they realize its power,
they're awed by it. They don't want to quit," Kynerd observes.
As a result, he can leverage the students' newfound familiarity with
CAD/CAM to further entice them into the world of manufacturing and
good, steady employment, linking prototyping, moldmaking, EDM, and
more to their success in their first machining project. "It is at this point they
begin to realize, with a little prodding from me, that almost any
manufactured item they use or touch originated in CAD/CAM, and that
they could become a part of the process."
And the students have also come away
with tangible proof that their ability to learn and earn is limited
only by their exposure to knowledge. "Flight is so readily
connected to career opportunities," Kynerd observes. "The
teaching unit can segue into real-life opportunities in the
burgeoning aerospace industry, actually in almost any area of
industry in which science and technology prevail. And now they see how, if they work
and study hard, they can become a part of it."
Kynerd is obviously inspired by the
possibilities. Thanks to his confidence in an innovative curriculum,
an easily mastered CAD/CAM program and an economical desktop mill,
Kynerd's students have
learned to believe that they can move from being "strangers in
a strange land" to become participants in the thriving economy
all around them. Onlookers no longer, many will rise, as on eagles'
Wings, to partake of the technological generation of America's
future.
|
|
