Acknowledgments Thanks to all the people who made this book series a reality The teachers I work with are truly an inspiration to me on a daily basis and their insight is invaluable Thanks to Laura Spinks Jennifer Allsbrook Sergey Zalevskiy Kim Mirasola Leslie Rhinehart Robert Frost Lucas Link and Shannon Haynes Thanks to the best agent in the business Kathy Green Thanks to Jerome Pohlen and the creative people at Chicago Review Press for helping to shape this book As always I am eternally grateful to my wife Michele for allowing me and my assistants to make a mess in the name of science And a special written shout-out to my two personal science assistants Jordan and Nicole Their tiny hands are featured in many of the photographs vii
Introduction What Is Engineering Engineering is using science to develop a solution to a problem Junk Drawer Engineering will stimulate brains to think devise and build creative solu tions Most of the projects will be challenges that have multiple correct solu tions The key to engineering is trial and error and learning from the errors Good engineering is as much art as it is science Engineering is seeing a problem and creating a means to fix it The art of seeing a new way to do something is a skill that gets better with practice The projects in this book will present you with engineering tasks that let your brain go to work Each project will have a suggested material list of low or no-cost sup plies The material list will be varied and not all items may be needed At its core engineering is trying different things so feel free to modify the material list based on your creativity and what you have available Learning to use what you have is the key to Junk Drawer Engineering Complete science kits are fun to do but creating your own fun from free stuff is even better It is also good for the environment because you will be able to repurpose stuff you already have Giving a new life to a broken toy or computer part just makes you feel good The instructions may suggest several possible solutions A basic approach will be shown to give you the ability to do each project but engineering is about thinking outside the box and devising new ways to do things You are encouraged to try new methods you never know what new and creative ways you will think of Try new approaches and see what works Not all approaches will work but that is OK Thomas Edison’s engineers tried over 2,000 combinations of materials before he found a combination that worked well enough to create the electric light By the way Edison did not invent the lightbulb he just made ix
