M.S.E. 100 - Introduction to Materials Science and Engineering

Instructor - Dr. James Adams
Course Goal:  Learn about engineering in general, and especially about materials engineering through a combination of design projects and creative problem solving. 

In the first class session, students were given approximately 20 minutes to build a tower using only a limited supply of computer paper and paper clips.  Specifications for the tower were:  3 feet high, withstand an earthquake (shaking of the table), and withstand a hurricane (manual fanning).  As an assignment for the next class meeting, students needed to come to class with a design using the same materials and specifications, but be able to build the tower in 5 minutes.  The photos below show students completing that assignment. 

The objective of this assignment was for students to learn teamwork, planning, design, creative problem solving, and efficiency.