Ocean and naval architectural engineering 101
Memorial’s
Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science believes in educating
‘prospective’ engineering students at a young age and
yes, even pre-schoolers. Last summer, Dr. David Murrin was a
visiting assistant professor with the faculty’s ocean and
naval architectural engineering program and he believes it’s
never too early to start.
“We really wanted to get kids excited about science and
engineering in general. That was the first step. In addition, ocean
and naval architectural engineering is an extremely challenging,
yet satisfying, discipline and we wanted to expose children to it
so that they would consider it as a possible career option,”
he said.
Dr. Murrin designed a two-day course for kids who were registered
in their school’s Junior High Enrichment Program. The program
taught them about ocean and naval architectural engineering, and
consisted of tours of the faculty’s laboratories, virtual
marine simulator, and interaction with a small remotely operated
vehicle (ROV) built by Dr. Murrin himself.
“The course, which is essentially about the behavior of
objects in water, was designed to educate students who
weren’t sufficiently challenged under their regular program
and introduce them to a career path in ocean and naval
architectural engineering,” said Dr. Murrin.
The first day students attended a laboratory where they were given
some empty bottles and they observed how the bottles floated in
water. Then they were given sand and water to put in the bottles,
and they observed the behavior again. After the demonstration, they
went back into a classroom to look at why things happened the way
they did.
On the second day, they were divided into two teams and each team
designed a boat as part of a boat-building competition.
“The competition consisted of two components – a race
to see which team had the fastest vessel, and a test to determine
which boat could carry the most weight without capsizing”
said Dr. Murrin.
At the end of the second day, the students were also able to
control a ROV in a small test tank and observe how it responded to
changes in propulsive and buoyant forces. Finally, students toured
the faculty’s laboratories which involved a ride in a towing
carriage which took them from one end of the towing tank to the
other as they observed a model dory being towed through water to
learn about resistance (friction).
“The model has sensors that send information back to a main
computer so that you can monitor the ship’s behaviour through
various speeds,” said Dr. Murrin.
“We had talked to each group about propulsion, which is
moving through the water and we talked about buoyancy, which is
making things float, but until they really got to see it they
didn’t really get it. So that was encouraging from the very
first tour,” added Dr. Murrin.
And even though the course was designed for junior high students,
it turns out that, with a little tweaking, it’s effective on
a much younger audience as well.
“Part of the course was taught to younger kids between the
ages of 2 and 5 at the Newfoundland Science Centre. We simply
talked to them about why things float, and when we let them to
control the little ROV they really started to understand,” he
said.
The faculty hopes to expand on this course in the future.
“These tours were designed to gauge excitement and interest
from the students. I’ve been overwhelmed. Kids, for various
reasons, they really, really get into it. For one thing they can
see it, and it moves. It responds right away. I think they like the
fact that they can push a button, and the ROV controls are very
similar to joysticks, which doesn’t hurt either,”
quipped Dr. Murrin.