^{Engineering Stories ( realistic fiction) in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM)}

By Kenneth Richard Hardman

Kenneth R. Hardman publisher c 2013

Engineering PS509..E55 H33 2013                       

 

Youth, Young Adults, and Educators, Come into my office, conference room, and laboratory – Experience my adventures, teams, challenges, thoughts, travels, and sudden insights. Engineering Stories are Realistic Fiction, short story dramatizations allowing the reader, through narration, description, dialogue, and thought to experience the adventure and satisfaction of being an engineer, or inventor.  Stories are very plausible, being fictionalized compositions of author experience. Herein, you are able to listen into the mind of an engineer, see how they think, observe how they might behave, understand what motivates them. The objective is to encourage students to consider or continue careers in science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM), show what it may be like, dispel a myth or two, and encourage creativity, problem solving, instilling the confidence to make the world a better place. Seven realistic stories are included in this volume. The focus is engineering product development which involves the activities of developing a product to satisfy the needs and desires of a customer. The customer could be a company, a work group, or an individual. The product could be a method of transportation, fabrication, spacecraft, or medical utility. These stories illustrate how customer needs are gathered, how product requirements are refined, and how creativity is used to determine good potential solutions to the product requirements. Examples are included showing the process by which options are evaluated, selected, designed, built, tested, and put to work for the customer. Like any good story, Engineering Stories show character development, how individuals work on their own and in teams to tackle challenges and build better products. Engineers travel, engineers learn, engineers struggle, engineers grow, and engineers feel joy in what they accomplish. Educators, This book can be used as supplemental material for the classroom. At the end of each story, mentor notes and exercises have been included to emphasize engineering ideas and encourage critical thinking, a very important engineering quality. The teacher is encouraged to assign this material to the student or use these questions for class discussion, and the student is encouraged to write responses to the questions. Finally, enjoy these stories. Encourage others to read them. If you can relate to these protagonists, these engineers, and find yourself improving upon what they have done, then you are probably an engineer, or should be.