Testing for Purpose

Engineers may be faced with a problem – which material should we use for a specific problem?

How do engineers and scientists determine the best material? They use research and results from experimental techniques to make informed decisions.

This lesson will allow students to creatively brainstorm ways of testing various items for a specific purpose, and assist students with ideas for the STEMIE Engineering task.

Examples of Testing

There are many ways of testing materials for a particular problem. The following videos showcase just some examples of ways to test items for a desired purpose.

Destructive testing of compressive strength – Egg Strength Test:

Aerodynamic Performance – Wind Tunnel Testing

Carbon Fiber Tensile Test – ASTM D3039

Today’s Problem

Brainstorm ways the following materials could be tested. This will help you design tests when planning what materials to use for the development of your engineering task. 

Think about how you could measure the strength to get a quantitative (measurable) result.

Items for testing:

• How much force is required to break a rubber band
• Compressive strength of a cardboard toilet roll (i.e. crushing a toilet roll tube)
• Load testing of a piece of chalk (i.e. snapping a piece of chalk)
• Voltage across a circuit