Aubrey recently noticed her grandmother's difficulty opening a bottle cap. Aubrey wanted to help. She found a method in her engineering class at Carson Middle School. The goal of the class is to solve problems. In the class, students had to change existing (现有的) products to make daily life easier for people with challenges.
To help Aubrey's grandmother solve the problem, Aubrey explored existing bottle openers and then created her own. For the improved bottle opener design, she used a piece of wood shaped like a cellphone. Next, she put three holes in it. The holes were of different sizes so that they could match common bottle cap sizes. With a simple twist, her grandmother could open bottles without help.
Students like Aubrey used math, physics and tool skills to help people with challenges.
They also learned about empathy." Empathy is looking at problems from another person's point of view," Aubrey's teacher, Mark Bolt said." It is of great value for engineering. You have to put yourself in the product users' shoes to build effective solutions.'
Other students in the class also applied empathy as they watched people around them struggle with daily tasks. Then they used their projects to find methods. Roman's grandfather had trouble holding a coffee cup because of his arthritis (关节炎). So Roman made a 3D-printed finger which helped his grandfather firmly support the bottom of the cup.
The class tried different ways to improve their products. Rather than giving step-by-step directions for creating their projects, Mark Bolt preferred to leave students' creative paths open.
"If we want to do better, we have to have a chance to fail," he said.
