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Partly-cloudy skies didn’t hold back students at the University of Arizona Engineering School’s Solar Oven Throw Down.
Students spent the past few months of class time designing and assembling ovens powered by the sun, and were ready to test them by attempting to cook biscuits.
UA faculty designed the course for students who are considering a career in engineering, be they freshmen at the UA or upperclassmen at certain local high schools.
It is a chance to learn about how engineering works, by working through design and construction of a device with a team.
“We’re really trying to use the collective intelligence and the social intelligence and that’s bringing groups together and getting them to problem solve together,” said UA Engineering Professor Kathleen Melde.
The project can be the first time some students attempt to work through the engineering process, and thoughts about how engineering works can change.
“I want to be in bio-systems and agriculture, nothing that I would build stuff," said UA student Alicia Bell. "I have actually oddly enjoyed building my oven.”
The project gave students a chance to test their math and design skills in the early stages, and then put their building skills to work in later stages.
Melde said the students even had an opportunity to deconstruct the early prototypes built by other groups to see what ideas they could learn and apply to their final design.
The project also made students learn to build a project within design parameters, assembling an oven that did not over or undercook the biscuit.
The ultimate goal of the class is to prepare students for what a future in engineering could entail: designing, calculating, building and testing designs while working in a collective style to create a product.
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