by Elissa Milto, Director of Outreach

Building on Novel Engineering, the CEEO will be offering a series of three online Novel Engineering challenges. In January, we began work on a grant funded by the United Engineering Foundation that will support work on Novel Engineering Challenges. The goal of Novel Engineering Challenges is to broaden interest and participation in engineering by providing a new entry point to engineering through literacy and human-centered problems. This initiative will be a hybrid between the content and approach of Novel Engineering and online sharing platform of Dr. E’s Challenges.

Each of the three challenges will task participants with reading a book, identifying a problem the characters face, designing and building a solution, and then sharing that solution. Solutions will be shared on Novel Engineering Challenges and then the community will be invited to comment and vote on the solutions to build excitement and feedback for the students’ work. The timeline for challenges is as follows:

Challenge 1 – Muncha! Muncha! Muncha! by Candace Fleming

Submission period April 1–31, Challenge Awards: May 5

Challenge 2 – Tales of a 4^th Grade Nothing by Judy Blume

Submission period July 1–31, Challenge Awards: August 5

Challenge 3 –  Poppy by Avi

Submission period Oct 1–31, Challenge Awards: November 5

One example from a past classroom reading Tales of a 4^th Grade Nothing by Judy Blume, is a cage that can be raised and lowered using a pulley attached to the ceiling to keep the main character’s pet turtle safe from his brother. (Picture below)

Novel Engineering Challenges will be marketed across the United States to schools and libraries. The target reading level for the books is grades 3-5, but we anticipate students outside of this range will be able to participate. On the  Novel Engineering Challenges website, we will provide support materials that will help educators and librarians set up and facilitate a building challenge. Support will include lesson plans, a materials list, and tips on doing Novel Engineering with students. Additionally, Tufts will host three on-site workshops on the Medford campus and Novel Engineering partners will hold one-day workshops at Washington University in St. Louis, Vanderbilt University, and High Tech for formal and informal educators interested in the challenges. The free workshops will provide a step-by-step walk through of the challenges to develop confidence and experience in those who may be new to engineering education.

Participants will have a month to build their solutions and then post them on the website to be added to a gallery of submissions. For more information on novel engineering and novel engineering challenges visit novelengineeringchallenges.org.  This link is not currently live but will be soon!