Posts Tagged ‘MIT’

Colfax MIT Inventeam videos document process

Thursday, August 1st, 2013

Colfax High School students, with a support of MIT, invented the Tri-Metric.

Colfax EurekaFest 015 (1)It is a tool that offers a brand new way to layout a house. The mechanical device sits in the middle of the building envelope and uses similar shapes to make sure the floor, walls and roof are all square to maximize support. This tool can be used by any home builder, but is especially designed for emergency relief housing constructed by Mercy Corps. It can be manufactured for under $20 and because all the complex math of trigonometry is built into this inventive tool, it can be used by the novice, expert or anyone in between.

Watch the amazing progress of these high school STEM students applying academics and using critical thinking throughout the design process. Twenty-three movies are available on the ColfaxMath channel under Colfax Inventeams Tri-Metric.

For example, watch the evolution from prototype to products on Twenty Little Bets to make the Tri-Metric. See how to Learn Trig the easy way with the Tri-Metric. Find out how to use the Tri Metric, Construction Layout Tool.


MIT BLOSSOMS offers Math & Science Teaching Videos

Monday, July 29th, 2013

MIT BLOSSOMS (Blended Learning Open Source Science and Math Studies) is a source of over 50 math and science video lessons developed by MIT faculty and others.  The Video Library makes lessons freely available to teachers as streaming video and Internet downloads. One goal of MIT BLOSSOMS is to encourage teachers around the world to explore and sample the many excellent teaching and learning resources that are today available for free online. In the MIT BLOSSOMS Video Library, you can search by education standards as well as topic and language.


Colfax Student InventTeam takes invention to MIT EurekaFest

Friday, June 28th, 2013

Colfax EurekaFest 015 (1)Colfax High School students, lead by teacher Jonathan Schwartz demonstrated the construction tool they invented at the MIT EurekaFest in June 2013. Carol Pepper-Kittredge of Sierra College serves as a mentor to the team.

Read more about the event at Time – Kiddovation: 6 Cool Inventions from High-Schoolers at MIT’s EurekaFest

Colfax EurekaFest 012 (1)Colfax EurekaFest 024Colfax EurekaFest 023

 


Colfax High School Students Receive MIT Invention Grant

Thursday, October 25th, 2012

Congratualtions to Jonathan Schwartz and Colfax High School students who have won  a Lemelson-MIT InvenTeam grant in the amount of $7,500 to create the Tri-Metric, a construction layout tool that can be used when building emergency housing to increase structural integrity. Colfax High School is one of 16 high schools nationwide to be selected as an InvenTeam this year.

Schwartz is active in the Sierra STEM Collaborative and the Sierra College CACT has supported improvements to the Colfax design, engineering and product development Career Technical Education program through grants.

The Colfax students will invent a Tri-Metric tool that can be used when building emergency housing. The goal is to make it easier to lay-out a house. It would allow novice builders to make sure the floor, walls and roof are all square, maximizing support to make the home sturdy. The students hope to design the mechanical device so it can be manufactured for under $20. The idea is to build in all the complex math of trigonometry into the tool so it can be used by anyone.

Schwartz, himself an inventor, says that students will experience working on a team and applying critical thinking skills. “They will design, and repeatedly prototype, test, and rebuild the Tri-Metric construction tool over nine months. They will go through the same experience that inventors go through,” said Schwartz. “In June, the students will showcase a prototype of their invention at EurekaFest at MIT in Cambridge, MA.”

Carol Pepper-Kittredge, Director, Center for Applied Competitive Technologies (CACT), Sierra College will mentor the team. “This project is an extension of the leadership Jonathan Schwartz and Colfax High School have demonstrated as participants in CACT’s Sierra STEM Collaborative,” said Pepper-Kittredge. “By applying their design, fabrication and math skills to solve a global problem, students, especially young women, will be inspired to consider technical careers.”

Entrepreneur and author Peter Sims, who wrote Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries and coauthored the best-seller True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership with Bill George will also mentor the team. A Colfax High School graduate, Sims has already met with students and inspired them with tales of how industry leaders innovate and produce new products.