EXPORTING ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGY PRACTICE TO ENHANCE PRE-COLLEGE MATHEMATICS LEARNING

Abstract

This presentation combines two theoretical perspectives. The first perspective, from engineering education, emphasizes the importance of communicating essential knowledge to non-engineers. The second theoretical perspective comes from the mathematics education research literature. It is well established that students may be able to recall certain facts, but fail to use those facts in solving novel problems. In many cases, students do not even recognize that solving such problems is important. This presentation describes how undergraduate engineering majors designed robots for a class project. These robots are low cost, built with mass produced low precision parts. Calibration and error-correction techniques in software and hardware are used to enhance their precision. These robots are designed to draw geometric art, and in the process, teach Mathematics to high school students. A detailed analysis of the necessary subject matter knowledge is provided here. Furthermore, a high school mathematics teacher has examined the robots from the perspective of the classroom. Methods to motivate learners and enhance instruction are described. Students are interested in real world problems. When students see the robots graph linear functions, they have an opportunity to analyze the relationship between algebra and geometry. Both linear functions and the Pythagorean theorem are central to high school mathematics. There is an enormous difference between drawing a line on graph paper versus writing a program for the robot to travel along a line in the real world with real error. This has the added benefit of examining the important topic of estimation. Bringing engineering technology into the classroom includes benefits at both levels. College students learn to communicate the results of their course work to an interested audience, with less specialized knowledge. High school students benefit by learning to apply knowledge of mathematics in novel ways to real world problems. As a result, they can develop a richer knowledge base for their mathematics education.