Tips & Tricks for Teachers

Originated By: Purdue Extension and Indiana 4-H

What is the NFPA Fluid Power Challenge?

The Fluid Power Challenge is an opportunity to expose youth to hydraulics, engineering design and STEM careers, while giving them an opportunity to build life skills such as teamwork, critical thinking, problem solving, and communication.

What is my role as a mentor/adult volunteer?

Adult mentors have a very important role in this. They are charged to help keep the kids focused and excited during the 6-8 week program. But as in any situation of working with youth, there are always some great tips for what to do and not to do as an adult volunteer/mentor.

DO:

  1. Encourage youth to think outside the box.
  2. Make sure that not just one team member is dominating the discussion, idea sharing, and building.
  3. Encourage youth to understand their strengths and weaknesses and encourage the group to share those to see where each youth fits best.
  4. Be a cheerleader.
  5. Foster inquiry based learning. No answer is wrong, let your group work through the process
  6. Help your group focus more on the process than the end goal, this will build confidence in their abilities.
  7. Make sure to help your group understand time management when building and carrying out their design. Have them practice and time areas, so they know how to properly use their time.
  8. Let them fail. Failure is ok, because a few failures sometimes end up with an awesome product. We learn more from failing than we do from always doing things correctly.

DON’T:

  1. Take over the idea time. Remember this is their project, not yours.
  2. Criticize ideas. This is a quick way to shut down creative processes.
  3. Get frustrated with the group. Try to stay patient even if they are doing things completely different than how you would like them to be done.
  4. Forget why we are doing this. As much fun as a challenge is, the real reason to have thiscompetition is the learning and STEM experience that these youth are having.

What Should I expect for the time in between the Workshop and the Competition?

During the 5-6 weeks period that the students are working together make sure that they are putting a good effort to create their portfolios. This portfolio will be evaluated based on the content which should include:

  • A demonstration of the division of labor (Describe the skills of each member and how much time was devoted to the activities)
  • A comprehensive list of materials, including consideration to alternative use of the materials
  • Many sketches, demonstrate that the device was not just put together without considering a soft design (paper or computer)
  • Have the students talk about best ways to make their structure stable and strong.
  • Ultimately, test their design by building it and improving it over time. (Take pictures of the process)

Another aspect of the Fluid Power Challenge is team work. Therefore, while it can be difficult to have them meet consistently, it is important for them to create a plan (time line) and have vision for milestones they need to achieve during the 5-6 week period. It may be that they work on their own for a while and then convene to combine their work.