Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Science Careers: Mechanical Engineering Technician
The mechanical engineering technician supports the mechanical engineer in designing all sorts of things we use in our everyday lives. This Science Buddies site lays out the requirements needed to become a mechanical engineering...
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Science Careers: Mechanical Engineer
All kinds of apparatus used in every day life are designed by the mechanical engineer. The career casts a broad engineering net. This Science Buddies site lays out the requirements needed to become a mechanical engineer, as well as the...
Technovation
Curiosity Machine: Challenges: Build a Crank Mechanism
In this challenge, students will transfer rotational motion into linear motion by building a simple machine. The site also includes tips, a lesson plan, and a place for students to document their engineering design process.
Technovation
Curiosity Machine: Challenges: Make a Mechanical Leg
This website challenges students to make a ball and socket joint that mimics the movement of a human hip or shoulder. Using only a tennis ball, rubber bands, cardboard, and tape, students will construct this mechanical device. The site...
Technovation
Curiosity Machine: Challenges: Design a Set of Mechanical Genes
Design a set of mechanical genes that control the way something grows with this challenge on this site. This site also includes tips, a lesson plan, and a place for students to document their engineering design process.
Technovation
Curiosity Machine: Challenges: Make a Mechanical Theater
Make a simple machine that creates characters for a theater show on this site. This site contains a lesson plan, tips, and a place for students to document their engineering design process.
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Knock Your Blocks Off: The Mechanics of Carnival Games
Why are those "simple" games at the fairs, carnivals, and boardwalks so hard? Is it really lack of skill or coordination or do those concessionaires use some basic laws of science to help them set up the games in their favor? This...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Does Contact Area Matter?
Using the same method for measuring friction that was used in the previous lesson (Discovering Friction), students design and conduct an experiment to determine if the amount of area over which an object contacts a surface it is moving...
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Gears Go Round!
Music boxes, bicycles, and clocks all have one thing in common: GEARS. You might say that gears make the world turn, since they are in so many mechanical instruments. How do they work and how do you know which gears to use? Find out in...
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: You Nailed It! Hammering Force for Different Types of Wood
This Science Buddies project explains how to build a mechanism that will reproducibly swing a hammer so you can determine the amount of force needed to hammer a nail through various densities of wood. The Science Buddies project ideas...
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Fractography: The Way Things Break
When something goes wrong, do you like to try to figure out why? Engineers do this all the time. They even have a fancy name for it: failure analysis. Understanding how different materials break is an important part of failure analysis....
Technovation
Curiosity Machine: Challenges: Design a Mechanical Pegboard
Are you ready to challenge yourself to make a peg board that lets you test multiple linkage systems and movements? This site contains not only the challenge but a platform to document your process as you solve the problem.
Technovation
Curiosity Machine: Challenges: Build a Cam Mechanism
Create a simple machine that transfers a rotational motion into linear vertical motion with this challenge. The site gives more details on the challenge as well as tips and place to document your design process. Teachers can find a...
Technovation
Curiosity Machine: Challenges: Build a Joint Mechanism
This website challenges students to make a simple machine out of a straw to mimic the movement of joints in your body. The website includes a lesson plan, tips, and a place for students to document their design process.
Michigan Technological University
Michigan Tech: Materials Science and Engineering: Tensile Test Experiment
Take a closer look at what is meant by the strength of a material. This easy experiment provides information about the strength or the mechanical behavior of a material, called the tensile test.
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Jack and Jill Went Up a Hill and Came Biking Down After
Are you a budding Lance Armstrong or Greg LeMond? Are you into cycling and speed? Then this is the science fair project for you. In this science fair project, you will determine the best gear ratio for your bike, to get the highest speed...
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Project Ideas: Transferring Heat by Convection in a Tank
In this engineering science fair project, students will determine the most effective method for quickly raising the temperature of a liquid in a tank. The Science Buddies project ideas are set up consistently beginning with an abstract,...
Discovery Education
Discovery Education: 3 M Young Scientist Lab: Salt Engineering
Salt crystals demonstrate how forces can be directed in mechanical systems.
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: The Unconstrained Truth About Constrained Layer Damping
This science fair project shows you how to transform a noisy piece of metal into a sound-muffling constrained-layer damper. You will record the sound of a controlled impact on a piece of metal with a microphone, a computer, and some free...
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Time Is Money
By applying principles of industrial engineering and time management, you will learn how you can speed through your chores and still have time to kick back and relax. You will also learn that time-efficiency is not the only factor...
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Understand Shock Levels and Packaging Principles
When you open up your presents on your birthday, you probably don't spend a lot of time admiring the wrapping-you'd much rather see what's inside. It can be the same way with the packaging that products come in, but packaging is...
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Bomb's Away! A Ping Pong Catapult
With this project you'll send ping pong balls flying through the air with a rubber-band powered catapult. This catapult makes it easy to reproduce the launch angle, and to measure the amount of force applied to the projectile. Armed with...
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Give Yourself a Lift: Lightening the Load With Pulleys
Before the Industrial Age, people relied on muscle power for moving and lifting heavy objects. Here's a project that shows you how you can use your head to make heavy lifting easier on your muscles - and your back.
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Explore the Forces of Friction
We all recognize what friction is, but do you really understand what causes it? This project focuses on friction, its causes and forces and specifically how it affects how fast you can slip down slides.