Star Car 2015 is an interdisciplinary graduate student initiative resulting in an interactive art car displayed and demonstrated at educational engineering events. Originally developed for a local engineering and art festival, Star Car has been improved and updated with new hands-on interactive stations. As last year, both the technical and artistic elements were designed around an educational space exploration theme, with the addition of global unity and cooperation.
Multiple interactive stations were attached on and around the car, allowing audience members to explore various elements of electrical and computer engineering through hands-on activities. The primary interactions were four conductive handholds, each featuring one element- wind, water, earth, and fire. Participants were encouraged to complete the circuits using the conductivity of human skin either alone, or by working alongside other participants. Each element played a different music sound through incorporated speakers when the corresponding circuit was completed.
This Maker poster-and-instructions submission will outline instructions for using a Makey Makey system to create conductive circuits as featured on the art car, which may be used for any educational or hands-on display.
Dr. Emily Marasco is an instructor of software engineering and the SSE Teaching Chair in Engineering Education Innovation – Digital Transformation. Her pedagogical research and teaching interests are in the areas of innovation and learning engineering, including the use of machine learning, gamification, blended learning, and entrepreneurial thinking as tools for enhancing creativity within software and computer engineering. Dr. Marasco is active as a science communicator and outreach speaker in the local education community. She has been recognized as the 2018 ASTech Outstanding Leader of Tomorrow and received the 2016 Claudette MacKay-Lassonde Graduate Award for women in engineering. She was most recently recognized as one of Calgary’s 2019 Top 40 Under 40 recipients.
Stephanie Hladik is a M.Sc student in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Calgary. Through her research she is exploring topics related to the integration of engineering into K-12 curricula. In particular, she is interested in bringing electrical engineering, programming, and the engineering design process into K-12 education. Aside from her research, Stephanie also participates regularly in outreach programs to promote STEM topics in classrooms and beyond.
Robyn Mae Paul is an Assistant Professor in the Sustainable Systems Engineering at the University of Calgary. Her research and teaching focuses on applying frameworks from social justice, queer theories, indigenous knowledges, and ecofeminism to broaden the narratives of engineering culture and foster more inclusive spaces and more socially just and sustainable engineering designs. She has achieved this work through tools including narrative inquiry, storytelling, and agent-based modeling.
I'm a biomedical engineering MSc student at the university of Calgary. My research interests include haptics, rehabilitation, mobile and wearable technology, engineering education and educational software. I'm currently developing a wearable device for blind and/or deaf users to interface with a computer.
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