Helping High School Students Become Engineers

Introduction

As part of a summer program, I had to help mentor a pair of high schoolers. They both showed interest in engineering and signed up for this internship. We tasked them with helping us design a sensor that would detect rainfall and how many inches that the rain fell. They had the summer to brainstorm, design, and fabricate this sensor.

Background Knowledge

Since these two were high school students, they had very limited knowledge in electrical circuits and what it takes to design one. Over the first few weeks, we quickly went over the basics of electrical engineering. Passive components such as resistors and capacitors, electrical formulas such as Ohm’s Law, all the basic topics were discussed as their background training in order to better prepare them for the challenge ahead.

Design Process

As mentors, we let them brainstorm on their own and encouraged them to think of a solution by themselves. Once they thought of ideas, we would inform them the next steps they would take to begin the process of design. We taught them how to use CAD software to design a printed circuit board, as well as how to write basic C code in order to write the application software. There was a lot of information, but the two high school students were determined and turned out to be very interested in the topics we discussed.

Conclusion

At the end of the summer, the two students designed a little container that would change it’s resisitivity whenever more water was put in the container. The reisistance was then read and converted into inches in the application software. The program was a success, as the students finished developing this new sensor. The students, as well as us mentors, learned a lot over that summer.