Engineering Commons^™

Creativity, Craftsmanship, And Connection: Large-Format Sculpture Design, Jacqueline L. Puga, Gordon Hoople

The STEAM Journal

Artistry is a concept that is not usually explored in engineering yet is an invaluable skill that touches everything from product design to systems thinking. This past summer I developed conceptual designs for a large format sculpture that required connecting engineering knowledge with artistic vision. The initial phase required constant inspiration and creativity. The first step was to look at previous sculptures showcased throughout the world, such as at venues like “Burning Man,” to understand the possibilities or limitations of the space provided. Sketching varied and numerous ideas was essential in our design process. Next, we took our favorite ideas …

Collaboration Between Science And Art Through A Special International Symposium For Ecosystem Health And Sustainability, Changwoo Ahn Dr.

The STEAM Journal

The collaborations between ecosystem restoration and art practices was epitomized by the eco-artist Jackie Brookner who said: “it is not a matter of the scientists providing the hard-core research and artists the soft outreach; rather, the dynamics engendered in the space between disciplines is full of information necessary to solve complex problems at the systemic level”. This paper reviews and summaries the goals, activities, and lessons learned from a special symposium, which was held at the 12^th INTECOL (International Congress of Ecology) conference in Beijing, China, August 21 through 25, 2017, where about 3000 people attended from 70 countries. …

Steam And Environmental Justice In An Interdisciplinary Context, Paula Farca, Alina Handorean, Jürgen Brune

The STEAM Journal

This course proposes an interdisciplinary perspective, envisions unique synergies between environmental justice concepts and STEAM projects on mining, and aims to solidify a foundation based on justice, equity, equality, and empathy for STEM students and faculty. Our (S)TEAM made of professors in three academic departments underscores interdisciplinary and diversity connections through an interdisciplinary team-taught course, units on environmental justice related to mining, teaching of literary texts, and STEAM projects. We also involved faculty, alumni, and our campus and city community through STEAM exhibits.

Gömböc The Great, Indigo M. Strickert, Lori E. Bradford

The STEAM Journal

A sonnet written about the mathematics behind the self-righting shape of some tortoise shells.

Challenge-Based Learning & Steam Curriculum, Diana Lockwood

The STEAM Journal

STEAM education is being integrated into elementary schools as a way to engage more students in creativity, hands-on learning, and problem-based learning also referred to as Challenge-Based-Learning (CBL). This article focuses on elementary educators’ curriculum design for STEAM and presenting students with open-ended questions phrased as a challenge as a way to raise student interest and achievement (DeJarnette, 2018; Hunter-Doniger, 2018). When students received challenges to solve, they felt more open to sharing their ideas since there was more than one potential right answer (DeJarnette, 2018; Drake, 2012). When implementing CBL, teachers act as facilitators using a constructivist approach as …

The Beautiful Math Of Everything And You Included, E. Ozie

The STEAM Journal

This a reflection on how there is beautiful math to everything. An author's interpretation of matrices and mechanics in its relationship to someone's identity.

What Can We Learn About Research Narratives From Professional Storytellers?, Kim Wilkins, Helen Marshall

The STEAM Journal

This short note on practice reflects on how “research narrative” is a much-used, but misunderstood term. Compelling stories about our research are important: for public-facing communications and for academic tenure confirmation and promotion. They are also important for researchers to gain a clearer sense of their own vision and values in the research process: they are not just a communication skill, they’re a career skill. But often researchers in STEM disciplines do not have the practical skills to write stories. We draw on our own practice as creative writers to share some simple and effective methods to bring arts expertise …

Dual-Adaptive Camouflage For The Hyperstealth Corperation, Keith J. Carlock Mr.

The STEAM Journal

Dual-Adaptive Camouflage, though still a concept that I've had for 28 years, seems to me, more promising that the bulk and brain power and needed energy supply of a computer-driven network of optical electronic harnesses that would be the basis for any suit that proclaims to render its wearer invisible.

About Time: Visualizing Time At Burning Man, Gordon D. Hoople, Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick, Nathaniel Parde, Diane Hoffoss, Max Mellette, Rachel Nishimura, Virginia Gutman

The STEAM Journal

About Time was a 30 foot long, 3000 pound wooden sundial that went up in flames at Burning Man 2019. The piece reflected on the role time plays in our lives. We organize our lives around time—are enslaved to time—and yet we know so little about it. Physicists and philosophers continue to grapple with deep puzzles of time—Is time a fundamental quantity, independent of human actions or observations or is it an emergent property of our perception? This installation projected time using two sundials: a horizontal dial which swept time out across the desert floor and an …

Unfolding Humanity: Cross-Disciplinary Sculpture Design, Gordon D. Hoople, Nate Parde, Quinn Pratt, Sydney Platt, Michael Sween, Ava Bellizzi, Viktoriya Alekseyeva, Alex Splide, Nicholas Cardoza, Christiana Salvosa, Eduardo Ortega, Elizabeth Sampson

The STEAM Journal

Unfolding Humanity is a 12 foot tall, 30 foot wide, 2 ton interactive metal sculpture that calls attention to the tension between technology and humanity. This sculpture was conceived, designed, and built by a large group (80+) of faculty, students, and community volunteers at the University of San Diego (USD). The piece is a dodecahedron whose pentagonal walls unfold under human power, an engineered design that alludes to Albrecht Dürer's 500-year-old unsolved math problem on unfolding polyhedra. When closed, the mirrored interior of the sculpture makes visitors feel as though they are at the center of the universe. The idea …

Outer Space: A Steam Voyage, Jancy Mcphee

The STEAM Journal

SciArt Exchange offers multi-disciplinary art contests, artwork events, consulting, training and community resources to support science and technology education, collaboration, and innovation. Using a science-integrated- with-art approach, SciArt Exchange supports, prepares, and convenes people of all ages, backgrounds and affiliations to discuss and potentially solve space, science, and technology challenges. This field note shares the Humans in Space Art Program and the Project Mars Competition.

3d Printing – An Insider’S Perspective, Siddharth Sah

The STEAM Journal

The 3D printing market globally is still at its infancy, - or some might argue that there isn’t really a market yet. The knowledge of 3D printing design is still largely limited to engineering design – not product design. At MakeWhale, we are constantly pushing the boundaries of the application of 3D printing technology to consumer products resulting in a beautiful mix of technology and art.

Harmonic Scale Transformations, John H. Chalmers

The STEAM Journal

My artwork derives from a project to delineate the transformations certain types of harmonic musical scales undergo as the sizes of their generating intervals vary over the space of the octave.

Steam In Arabia, Troy Bickham

The STEAM Journal

In late 2014 Texas A&M University at Qatar, which is a small branch campus focusing on engineering, launched its own STEAM initiative. Its goals are to better integrate the liberal arts into the engineering curriculum and to demonstrate the relevance of the arts to STEM-based education and research. What follows is a description of the initiative and the reception it has received.

Lessons For Life, Story Musgrave

The STEAM Journal

This piece explores the creation of character and talent through a wide diversity of education and experience.

Ecoscience + Art Initiative: Designing A New Paradigm For College Education, Scholarship, And Service, Changwoo Ahn

The STEAM Journal

The paper presents a new initiative, EcoScience + Art, which blooms at George Mason University. The creator explains the background, history, and recent activities of the initiative, and also introduces an on-going special project called “The Rain Project”, a student participatory project to design, construct, and monitor a green infrastructure (i.e., floating wetland) for sustainable stormwater management on campus. The special project is geared to design and present a new paradigm to integrate college education, scholarship, and service. The relevance of the initiative and the special project to STEAM education is discussed.

Beer And Brewing In German Culture: Bridging The Gaps Within Steam, John D. Sundquist

The STEAM Journal

A university-level course on science, history, and culture of beer and brewing offers students from a wide range of disciplines a unique opportunity to learn from each other. They gain an appreciation for STEAM and the interaction of a number of disciplines while examining a subject of growing interest. This paper provides a brief description of such a course and includes specific examples of ways in which students explore science, engineering, humanities and the arts, as these areas of research come together in the study of beer and brewing.

Pigs Feet, Jesse W. Standlea

The STEAM Journal

My sculpture “Pigs Feet” has literal foundations upon casts of live pig’s feet. I locally sourced the pig’s feet before casting them. My sculpture makes use of a once cutting edge casting technology, alginate. Alginate molds were once the standard in dentistry. Alginate is an appealing casting material as it is refined from brown seaweeds, is both food and skin safe, it is suitable for educators, for artists and engineers alike.

Two Bit Circus, Elise Lemle

The STEAM Journal

Two Bit Circus collaborated with the Girl Scouts of the Greater Los Angeles Area to explore the exciting world of wearable electronics. Over the course of the program, the students explored concepts of introductory electronics while designing and creating their own illuminated fashion piece. The program was held in Montrose, CA in Fall 2013. The students were approximately 10 girls ages seven to 14. The program was held over seven sessions with each session lasting 80 minutes.

Celestial Messenger, Bijian Fan

The STEAM Journal

This dragon sculpture is embedded with binary code in the form of 1s and 0s, they are generated by light transmission through the holes.

Spannungsfeld, Julian Voss-Andreae

The STEAM Journal

My design for a sculptural installation for the University of Minnesota’s new Physics and Nanotechnology Building is inspired by a view of the human body through the lens of quantum physics.

The German title of the installation (literally "tension field") originated in physics but is used in contemporary German almost exclusively in a metaphorical sense, implying a dynamic tension, often between polar opposites, that permeates everything in its vicinity.

90° To 360°, Holly Paronelli

The STEAM Journal

When I hear STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and Art I think of Math and value. Even though there is value in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics) the value as a whole cannot be fully calculated. Art is too indefinite, to vast, too infinite to be calculated, but aspects of STEM can be. Yet even then what we think we know comes down to interpretation, fact is fact for only a while.

Quantum Man, Julian Voss-Andreae

The STEAM Journal

According to quantum physics, the world is fundamentally quite different than it seems. Drawing inspiration from the underlying nature of reality, former quantum physicist Julian Voss-Andreae created an image of a walking human as a quantum object. Made up of parallel sheets of steel, the sculpture is a metaphor for the counter-intuitive world of quantum physics. Symbolizing the dual nature of matter with the appearance of classical reality on the surface and cloudy quantum behavior underneath, the sculpture seems to consist of solid steel when seen from the front, but dissolves into almost nothing when seen from the side.

The Wiseman, James William Sobieski

The STEAM Journal

I created this artwork for a gallery show of masks. I have always been an auto-didact. I turned my love of books and learning into a sculpture that is a self-portrait. It is an icon of the power knowledge brings. A mask is a protective barrier between the wearer and the world. The paper word-filled book pages create a fierce and intimidating grill. I love working with a variety of materials and constructing objects that demand the viewer to think.

Migration Grid #26, Stanton Hunter

The STEAM Journal

This work is inspired by invisible sky grids formed by Ultra Violet (UV) light researchers discovered that guide Monarch butterflies on their migration from the mid-western United States to the Sierra Madre Mountains in Mexico. I use terrestrial material, clay, to make something celestial. Earth, associated with mass and permanence, is translated into these shifting, ephemeral, and ethereal sky-forms. The work encompasses void more than object and the complex shadows they cast are immaterial. Together, the objects and shadows point to what can’t be seen, at least by the human eye.

Towards A “Cloud Curriculum” In Art And Science?, Roger Malina

The STEAM Journal

Recently an email hit my desk from Paul Thomas in Australia with a proposal to work together on a “Cloud Curriculum for Art and Science”. I immediately agreed to collaborate. I don’t yet have a clue of what a cloud curriculum is, but what I do know is that we are ‘backing into the future’ in educational institutions and we desperately need a ‘cloud curriculum.’ We need to look over the ten year horizon. And in the emerging art-science field I doubt that the usual approach to curriculum development will work.

Steam...Now!, John Eger

The STEAM Journal

With America slowly awakening to the need to turn out creative and innovative workers who can join the 21^st century (its already 2012) workplace -- because they have the new thinking skills --we have to change the current emphasis on STEM, for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math to STEAM, by insuring that the whole brain is nurtured through the arts: thus STEAM.

On Cultural Polymathy: How Visual Thinking, Culture, And Community Create A Platform For Progress, Whitney Dail

The STEAM Journal

Within the last decade, the commingling of art and science has reached a critical mass. Science has long infused the arts with curiosity for natural phenomena and human behavior. New models for producing knowledge have given rise to interaction and collaboration across the globe, along with a renewed Renaissance.

Getting Real About The E In Steam, James Catterall

The STEAM Journal

STEM and STEAM are in the news. Researchers and educators in my field (cognition, art, and creativity) argue reasons for adding the A to STEM. While I visit this below, my focus is elsewhere. In this brief essay, I want to explore the meaning and importance of the E appearing in both STEM and STEAM. What’s engineering doing in this mix? And what are some reasons for affirming the arts when the role of engineering is clarified?

A Letter To The Steam Journal Readers, Deborah Freund

The STEAM Journal

A letter to the readers from the President of Claremont Graduate University, President Deborah Freund, welcoming the inaugural issue of 'The STEAM Journal'.