For National Lab Day 2019, the Applied Fluid Mechanics Lab hosted groups of high school students from Deer Creek High School and Oklahoma Virtual Charter Academy. Students were introduced to bio-inspired engineering design, and had the opportunity to participate in hands-on activities involving scale modeling, insect flight, and crustacean swimming.
Dr. Santhanakrishnan discussing bio-inspired design with students from Deer Creek High School
Using toy sharks to demonstrate how viscosity affects swimming performance
Students making model Thrips wings to study insect flight
Flow visualization using florescent dye
Dr. S explaining the unique swimming strategy used by krill and shrimp
Students watching a demonstration of the “krillbot”
Dr. S. discussing bio-inspired engineering with students from the Oklahoma Virtual Charter Academy
Demonstration of how viscosity influences swimming ability — explaining why zooplankton must use different swimming strategies than larger marine organisms
Students making model Thrips wings to test on the insect flight platform
Students enjoying visiting research labs on National Lab Day
Students watching a demonstration of the “krillbot”
Students watching a demonstration of the lab’s helicopter model
Mitch demonstrating the helicopter model for visiting students
The Applied Fluid Mechanics Lab hosted 3 groups with 25 students each from Stillwater High Schools in December 2014. The broad goal of this effort was to show ongoing bioengineering research at Oklahoma State University. Each visiting student group got a chance to listen to graduate students in the lab talk about their research projects. Dr. Santhanakrishnan presented a short talk to all the students and teachers on bioengineering research in the lab.
Though slightly crammed in, our visiting students had a good time checking out the marine life in ATRC 147 lab & getting to see the particle image velocimetry setup!
The lab hosted a group of high school students and teachers from Oklahoma as a part of the Oklahoma State University-National Lab Day in May 2014. Dr. Santhanakrishnan explained the relevance of scale modeling and flow visualization to a wide range of engineering applications. The students participated in a hands-on activity in flow visualization using the tiny insect flight test platform where a pair of wings interact via the ‘clap and fling’ mechanism. They hypothesized what would happen to flow structures with increasing frequency. Students were then divided into multiple groups.
Each group performed flow visualization using fluorescein dye and observed the flow structures with changing Reynolds number. After all groups completed their experiment, we reconvened and discussed how their hypotheses compared with what actually happened, and why so.
Dr. Santhanakrishnan developed a lesson plan and activity "We can work it out!" for 6th grade students in César Chávez Elementary School, Oklahoma City Public Schools, during intersession in December 2013. The main purpose of this activity was to illustrate use of the scientific method. Students in the 6th grade classroom were asked to rank (hypothesize) which of the following 6 sets of aerobic & anaerobic exercises increased heart rate from most to least: running in place, squats, situps, sitting on a chair, jumping jacks, and pushups. To see the handout developed for the activity, please click HERE.
Student groups performing exercise activities - slightly chaotic!
The students were divided into multiple groups, each group member performed 1 activity above for a fixed amount of time. After all the work out, students compared the measured heart rate variation in their group to individual hypothesized rankings and discussed why particular forms of exercise would be more suitable for muscle mass increase but not weight loss.
Pulse measurement was a real challenge in this age group :)