Abstract
How many rubber bands does it take to cause a watermelon to explode? How far away can you stand and still blow out a birthday candle? Why can’t you flip your iPhone end-over-end without causing it to do a somersault? Most students come to engineering with a wonderful combination of inspiration and wonder. Why are things the way they are? How can we make them better? As educators in the Internet era, our primary mission is to help students hone and direct these instincts, helping them ask better questions and develop the tools and vocabulary they need to synthesize the best answers—and in the process discover even more profound and provocative questions! Play is an essential element of this process of discovery.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
American Go Foundation. (2011). Step 2: Lose 100 Games as Quickly as Possible. Available at http://agfgo.org/pages/learn2.php. Accessed December 18, 2017.
Bain, K. (2004). What the Best College Teachers Do. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Bereiter, C. (2009). Education and Mind in the Knowledge Age. New York: Routledge.
Brockett, R. (2001). New Issues in the Mathematics of Control. In B. Engquist & W. Schmid (Eds.), Mathematics Unlimited—2001 and Beyond (pp. 189–220). Berlin: Springer. Available at https://www.cds.caltech.edu/~murray/cdspanel/brockett00-springer.pdf. Accessed April 1, 2018.
Deci, E. L. (1972). The Effects of Contingent and Noncontingent Rewards and Controls on Intrinsic Motivation. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance,8, 217–229.
DiCarlo, S. E. (2009). Too Much Content, Not Enough Thinking, and Too Little FUN!, Claude Bernard Distinguished Lecture. Advances in Physiology Education, 33, 4. Available at http://www.physiology.org/doi/abs/10.1152/advan.00075.2009. Accessed May 30, 2018.
Egan, K. (2005). An Imaginative Approach to Teaching. San Francisco: Wiley.
Evasius. (2010). Extraordinary Toroidal Vortices. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHyTOcfF99o&t=225s. Accessed December 18, 2017.
Exodus, The Hebrew Bible.
Firestein, S. (2013). Pursuit of Ignorance. Available at https://www.ted.com/talks/stuart_firestein_the_pursuit_of_ignorance. Accessed December 18, 2017.
Henderson, T. Z., & Atencio, D. J. (2007). Integration of Play, Learning, and Experience: What Museums Afford Young Visitors. Early Childhood Education Journal,35, 245–251.
Heyman, J. (1997). The Stone Skeleton: Structural Engineering of Masonry Architecture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kothmann, B. (2012). MEAM 347 VAWT Demo Highlights. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9B8h-e7LZM. Accessed December 18, 2017.
Meyer, D. (2010). Math Class Needs a Makeover. Available at https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_meyer_math_curriculum_makeover. Accessed December 18, 2017.
MFC. (2018). Multifaith Calendar. Available at http://multifaithcalendar.org/index.php. Accessed April 1, 2018.
Panton, R. (2013). Incompressible Flow. Hoboken: Wiley.
Physics Girl. (2014). Crazy Pool Vortex. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnbJEg9r1o8. Accessed December 18, 2017.
Plasma Ben. (2009). The Same Physics Are Evident in Dancing T-handle in Zero-g [Online]. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1n-HMSCDYtM. Accessed December 18, 2017.
Schank, R. (1998). Roger Schank Talks Training. Technical Training, as cited by Patrick Crispen. Available at http://www.moline-consulting.com/Reinventando/Pagines/TenemosCitasSobre.htm. Accessed December 18, 2017. See also http://www.rogerschank.com/.
Stewart, I. (2010). Professor Stewart’s Hoard of Mathematical Treasures (pp. 133–134). London: Basic Books.
Stokes, P. D. (2005). Creativity from Constraints, the Psychology of Breakthrough. New York: Springer.
Willingham, D. (2009). Why Students Don’t Like School. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Kothmann, B. (2019). Exploration: Play in Engineering Education. In: James, A., Nerantzi, C. (eds) The Power of Play in Higher Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95780-7_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95780-7_14
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-95779-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-95780-7
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)