Mechanical Engineering For Middle School Students: An Overview Of The Mechanical Engineering Portion Of Mst At Msu

Mathematics, Science, and Technology at Michigan State University (MST at MSU) is a two week long introduction to advanced science and technology for academically-gifted middle school students. Though the program consists of a number of academic courses, a cornerstone of this program, and the focus of the present work, is a short course in mechanical engineering, which is presently in its ninth year of existence. This course is intended to expose the students to the fundamentals of mechanical engineering, as well as a variety of practical engineering problems related to the field. Though portions of this program were previously presented to the ASEE in 2000, the program has undergone a significant evolution since the initial report (completed after the first year of the course). As such, the present work contains a comprehensive overview of the current program’s curriculum, organization, and, where instructional, evolution. As a whole, the work is intended to serve as a template for future mechanical engineering pre-college programs.