Handling hovercrafts : designing a project curriculum to introduce girls to mechanical engineering

Abstract

The Women's Technology Program was created in MIT's Electrical Engineering and Computer Science department to expose girls to engineering topics and to encourage them to choose engineering majors in college. For the upcoming launch of a WTP in the mechanical engineering department, a new curriculum is being developed. The objective of this research was to create a capstone design project for the WTP-ME curriculum that sparks high school girls' interest in design and manufacturing. A hovercraft design contest was chosen as the basis for the project because of the range of concepts it encompasses and because the competitive nature of the project would encourage cooperation and motivation among the students. To test the project's feasibility, several hovercrafts were built using different materials and geometries. A list of materials was created and contest rules were constructed based on the results, and one hovercraft design was selected to be used as a template hovercraft for the students.