Design Squad: A Journey into Reality (TV)
| Event Date: | October 2, 2008 |
|---|---|
| Speaker: | Shawn Jordan |
| Speaker Affiliation: | Purdue University |
| Sponsor: | ENE |
| Time: | 3:30-4:30 |
| Location: | ARMS B071 |
| Contact Name: | Alice Pawley |
| Contact Phone: | 6-1209 |
| Contact Email: | apawley@purdue.edu |
| Open To: | Faculty, staff, students, visitors |
Tuesday 6.17: Taught the cast about basic electrical circuits, switches, motors, relays, and batteries.
Friday 7.25: The engineering team set out to test the grass dogsleds today. A critical element was missing – the dogs - leaving us to take turns pulling the sleds.
Thursday 7.31: Designed and built a shop-sized Rube Goldberg machine for an episode introduction out of prototypes the kids had built to earlier challenges.
Monday, 8.11: Unloaded a barge of engineering supplies onto an island with a crane in the rain.
Good television and good engineering: that’s what Design Squad, an award-winning PBS reality television show targeted toward middle school students, is all about. I had the opportunity to work behind the scenes as an engineering assistant on the production of season 3 of the show last summer. This presentation will provide a glimpse into my journey and what it’s like to work as an engineering educator in the world of television, where every day brings a new adventure!
Shawn Jordan is a doctoral candidate in the School of Engineering Education at Purdue University, where he is studying geographically-distributed design teams. His other research interests include technology-supported design environments, interdisciplinarity, creativity and innovation, and teaching engineering design to middle and high school students. He holds both B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Purdue University.
Shawn founded the three-time national champion Purdue Society of Professional Engineers Rube Goldberg team, and has appeared on many television shows with his Rube Goldberg machines (including Jimmy Kimmel LIVE and Master of Champions on ABC). He currently teaches a “Rube Goldbergineering” engineering and science enrichment course for middle school students. He has received the Magoon Award for Excellence in Teaching and the Graduate Student Award for Outstanding Teaching for his work as a teaching assistant, and has volunteered as a science and engineering demonstrator at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago for two summers.