Summer professional development: A course through Project Lead the Way to become certified as an instructor for Loyola’s new Introduction to Engineering Design course, offered for the first time this fall. 

What was your favorite part of the experience? “I went through a consolidated class of what I will be teaching. I had to do exactly what my students will be doing! I most enjoyed building the automata, which is the culminating project for the class.

An automata is a self-operating machine or a machine or control mechanism designed to automatically follow a predetermined sequence of operations or respond to predetermined instructions. In Loyola’s new Introduction to Engineering Design class, students will design their own automata box using 3D software and then build it. The project includes designing cams depending on what motion they would like their characters to move and 3D printing the device. In the class students will learn about the design process, technical sketching and drawing, measurements and statistics, geometry of design, reverse engineering and computer modeling.”