Dream It. Build It. Teach It!

How many beatboxing engineers do you know? At least one, now.

Watch Design Squad Host, Nate Ball, give us a small taste of his tremendous talent as he beatboxes The Twelve Days of Christmas.

Please note: Regifting is totally acceptable.

Four years ago when Deysi Melgar landed a spot on the cast of Design Squad, she was an aspiring actress and dancer--she wanted to be a Broadway star. This spring, she'll graduate from college with a degree in physics and plans to pursue a graduate degree . . . in aerospace engineering. Now, Deysi wants to build planes.

Deysi never considered a career in STEM until her work on Design Squad.

Deysi came to the U.S. from Mexico when she was seven years old. She liked learning about how things work and developed a love for math in elementary school. She also loved acting, singing and dancing, and chose to attend a high school for performing arts. Deysi enjoyed the spotlight, but she was also drawn to the technical side of theater where she could build things--like set design and lighting. When she learned about Design Squad, she realized that her passions for math and theater could be channeled into engineering.

Deysi got the part. While on the show, she experienced engineering first-hand and found out how dynamic and multifaceted it can be--collaborating with interesting and talented people, being creative, solving problems, and making a difference in people's lives.

Now at Wheaton College, Deysi is studying physics--which has helped fuel her long-time interest in planes. She's also working on an independent study project learning how to build a laser! She wants to make holograms with it, of course.

Last month, Deysi was asked to give the keynote speech at Invent It. Build It., an event at the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) National Conference in Chicago. The goal of the event was to inspire girls to consider engineering as a career. I think they chose the right person to give the podium.

Deysi credits Design Squad with opening her eyes to engineering as a career and showing her a way to unite her many passions.

Summer can never seem to come soon enough--for pretty much all of us, it seems, but for kids especially. So let's take a moment to rejoice, because hallelujah, summer's here! But just because your kids are out of school, it doesn't mean the learning has to stop. Here are a few ways to slip some STEM into your barbeques, beach days, and road trips!

• Meet an ice cream engineer

• Make your own ice cream Then, design your own flavor!

• Meet a roller coaster engineer

• Design a roller coaster ride for a marble
  

• Create your own roller coaster
  

• Invent a collection of carnival games (PDF)

• Build an unsinkable boat 

• Learn how a sailboat sails

• Take a road trip to see these iconic examples of engineering
  

• Discover the physics behind a skateboard trick

Still hungry for more? Battle your kids' complaints of boredom with THIS SUPER-SIZED CHALLENGE with super-sized prizes: Build Big (and win!)

Some content courtesy of Fetch with Ruff Ruffman, Time to Invent, and eGFI.

Let's start with the figures: $120,000, $105,000, $98,000.

If the appeal of improving lives, being creative, making a difference, and changing the world is lost on your kids, why not get them thinking about careers in engineering by talking cold hard cash.

Here are the top top ten college majors with the highest median earnings per year:

• Petroleum engineering: $120,000
• Pharmacy sciences and administration: $105,000
• Mathematics and computer science: $98,000
• Aerospace engineering: $87,000
• Chemical engineering: $86,000
• Electrical engineering: $85,000
• Naval architecture and marine engineering: $82,000
• Mechanical engineering: $80,000
• Metallurgical engineering: $80,000
• Mining and mineral engineering: $80,000

Would ya look at at that?

For more, check out the source of this list at Change the Equation. And woo your kids with videos of engineers doing cool things here (click on the Resource Topics, then look for the Video Profiles tab.)

Not many kids get to see their ideas for new inventions become reality, but Lilly, MaryAnn, and Daniel are exceptions. As winners of our 2010 Trash to Treasure competition, they worked with professional engineers at Continuum, a global innovation and design consultancy, to turn their ideas into real working products. And oh, what cool ideas they are.

After seeing a dunking booth at a fair, Lilly thought of making one for her own backyard parties, and came up with the idea of the Sibling Soaker: a device that breaks a water balloon over someone's head (preferably a sibling, it seems). "Throw, hit target, break water balloon, douse annoying sisters!!"

Daniel designed the MiBike: an all-weather bicycle. His inspiration? Too many walks to school in the rain. "You ride it like a bike, but you have side mirrors, a roof (to block the rain/snow) and a storage compartment for all your books, pencils, backpacks, etc."

MaryAnn's Smarter Toilet conserves water with every flush. Based on the idea of putting a brick in your toilet tank to save water, the Smarter Toilet uses a bottle and plunger design that allows control over how much water is flushed. "My invention will save millions of gallons of water. More then 40 percent of daily water requirements are used by toilets." (Because of her Smarter Toilet, MaryAnn received an invitation to the White House Science Fair and shook hands with POTUS himself!)
 
Oh, and another bonus for winning? Lilly, Daniel, and MaryAnn starred in the season finale of Design Squad Nation in the aptly-named episode, Trash to Treasure.

Earth Day is April 22, so raise the (solar-paneled) roof and celebrate! Get your kids pumped about the planet--and engineering--with resources from these cool sites:

American Society for Engineering Education
Check out the eGFI Teacher Blog for a list of Earth Day activities, lessons, and resources.

Engineer Your Life
Meet engineers Daniele Lantagne and Tanya Martinez. Daniele makes drinking water safe and Tanya helps communities access renewable energy sources.

NOVA
Explore the NOVA Teachers site to learn about eight of the latest solar technologies, see inside a solar cell, find out how to capture carbon, and more.

NASA
See how NASA studies Earth from space and enter NASA's Earth Day video contest!

The Greens
Encourage kids to take action and make green living a part of their lives. Download an activity guide with six activities ideal for after school programs.


Earth Day Network
Discover the Earth Day Educator's Network for standards-based lessons, school greening tips, grants for teachers and more.

Teachers' Domain
Examine environmental health issues with classroom-ready resources in TD's Environmental Public Health (EPH) collection.

American Society of Civil Engineers
Take a trip to ASCEville to see how civil engineers make cities sustainable.



Design Squad Nation
Check out the Green resources in our Educators Library and don't miss the new 8-minute webisode Sustainable South Bronx. Judy and Adam help a South Bronx student build an air pollution monitoring device. Watch Part 1 and Part 2 now!


What do you do with your kids to recognize the importance of Earth Day? (Leave a comment, we're all ears!)

Design Squad Nation has launched a new contest! It's a great fit for kids in classrooms, clubs, and after school programs.

1. Form a team (with a team leader over the age of 18).
   
2. Choose any activity from the Design Squad Nation web site. (There are a ton!)
   
3. Build a big version of it. (Make it large and in charge!)
   
4. Upload a video of the working design to YouTube. (Go viral, baby!)
   

The winning team will receive a super cool Flip Cam and have its project featured on the DSN web site!

This is the big time, people. Go big or go home! (Not really, that was just for dramatic effect. You'll still be welcome here either way.)

Read more about the contest HERE.

Beatriz is a high school student in Emeryville, California with two passions: music and bicycles. Building bicycles, to be exact. (This girl knows her way around a blow torch.)

Beatriz loves to create and wants to build something unique that combines her two passions--sounds like just the challenge for our favorite pair of engineers. In Musical Bike, Judy and Adam help Beatriz design and build a pedal-powered pipe organ.

You can use Musical Bike as a launching point to teach your kids the science and engineering of sound. Watch the episode and read on for more!


Ready to get your hands on a blow torch, too? Before you pull your old Schwinn out of the garage, check out the wealth of educator resources that support Musical Bike.

Hands-on Activities:
Build a Band: Build a four-stringed instrument and use it to play a tune. (45 min.)
Headphone Helper: Add headphones to a Build a Band instrument to make it easier to hear. (45 min.)
Watch a demo of both activities.

Online Game:
String Thing: Manipulate a virtual string's tension, length, and gauge to produce different musical pitches. (Go ahead, unleash your inner Jimi Hendrix!)

Animations:
What Is Sound? (30 sec.)
What Is Pitch? (30 sec.)
How Do String Length, Tension, and Gauge Affect Pitch? (30 sec.)
How Does Pipe Length Affect Pitch? (30 sec.)
Pedal-Powered Organ (1m 24s)
Pipe Test (1m 30s)
How Does Welding Work? (30 sec.)

Video Profile:
Submarine Sonar - Lt. Darrin Barber: Electrical engineer Lt. Darrin Barber plumbs the depths of sonar technology in his work on one of the U.S. Navy's newest and most high-tech submarines, the USS Texas. (2 min.)

Bonus Sound Episodes:
Rock On: Design Squad teams create original musical instruments for a rock band.

Bonus Bike Episodes:
Garden-to-Go: Adam and Judy help two kids design and build a pedal-powered mobile garden. 
Tour de BBQ: Design Squad teams compete to build a bicycle-powered rotisserie for a BBQ Restaurant.

Okay, now go get that Schwinn...

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