Revealing Mechanical Engineering in Non-Traditional Spaces: Salons and Barbershops 1

Overview

The REID Lab tasked the team with introducing mechanical engineering concepts to students in an exciting manner. In addition, the team must inspire students to stay interested, and potentially pursue a career in mechanical engineering. To rebrand the concept of mechanical engineering in a way that is appealing for a K-5 audience, items and elements commonly found within salons and barbershops will be used and explored.

Objectives

The objective is to create educational products that will be implemented into waiting areas of salons or barber shops, while children wait for their parent or guardian at their appointment. A collection of rhyming board books were created where each book focused on breaking down the parts of a specific hair tool through simple engineering concepts. Each book has a correlating physical toy(s) or activity where a child can interact with and learn about each hair tool in a hands-on setting.

Approach

– Discussed topics learned in elementary school with early elementary major students to ensure understanding of topics taught within the books and interactive elements.
– Used engineering judgment to implement needs that are most important for young children, like safety of parts created.
– Used an AHP matrix to rank the customer needs based on safety and educational basis of the project.
– The team conducted several brainstorming sessions to generate three initial concepts to educate younger audiences about the mechanical parts of a hair dryer or other tools found in salons and barber shops.
– Each concept was then weighed using a Pugh concept scoring table, in which the team was able to determine that a board book was the most educational and safe option.
– The team conducted extensive research on current products that could be used as sources of inspiration for developing components of the learning module.
– Meetings were held with the sponsor to ask questions and gather information about project goals.
– CAD models were created for the curling iron interactive elements. The team created three rods of different diameters to represent curling irons and how the different diameters create different size curls. The rods are used with the hair element created from Barbies so that children can curl the hair and observe how it holds the shape.
– The team also created a CAD model for the hair follicle extrusion tool. The CAD model was created with the four different follicle shapes cut-extruded through the tool, so PlayDoh can be pushed through to represent the hair types of different hair follicle shapes created.
– Three rhyming books were created to engage K-5 students in mechanical engineering, specifically focusing on the assembly of a hair dryer, curling iron, and barber clippers. The hair dryer book was accompanied by a puzzle where students could test their knowledge of what they learned in the book. The barber clippers book was accompanied by an exploded view of a pair of actual barber clippers to help students connect what they learned in the book. The curling iron book was accompanied by a hair curling display and an interactive Play-Doh display.
– The team displayed the prototypes with peers in engineering and early child education majors. The feedback from them was used to alter and revise wording in books, puzzle piece sizing and other aspects to make our overall prototypes better.
– Due to the project completed by the team, K-5 students now have an effective module of materials to be introduced to STEM concepts, specifically focusing on those relevant to mechanical engineering.

Outcomes

With completed prototypes, K-5 students now have an effective module of materials to be introduced to STEM concepts, specifically focusing on those relevant to mechanical engineering.

https://youtu.be/nIzu6rXrLUU