http://www.needs.org Newest 10 learning objects added at NEEDS http://www.needs.org/needs/public/search/search_results/learning_resource/summary/?id=4113E425-1D15-4153-919C-2163775BCE26 The goal of this research is to establish a framework to develop and implement standards for K-12 computer education. Proposed framework is based on using computing identify development among K-12 students as a goal to help in choosing K-12 educational standards for incremental implementation. Abstract: "As computers become more ubiquitous across fields, it is becoming more important to integrate computing education into K-12 schools. However, it is challenging to develop and implement standards for this integration, because computing is a dynamic field, where technologies change more rapidly than curricula can be modified. The goal of this research is to establish a framework for developing and implementing standards for K-12 computing education. Our proposed framework is based on using computing identity development among K-12 students as a goal to help in choosing K-12 educational standards for incremental implementation. A synthesis of two models developed to improve identity among college students is presented. One of the models is specifically based on leadership in computing, while the other focuses on peer mentoring for student development. The authors also present an extension of these models for future K-12 computing curricular development to help educators prioritize implementation goals based on newly developing standards." Citation: Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges archive Volume 24 Issue 3, January 2009. Mon, 05 Mar 2012 02:21:07 GMT Kera Bell-Watkins http://www.needs.org/needs/public/search/search_results/learning_resource/summary/?id=4113E425-1D15-4153-919C-2163775BCE26 Kera Bell-Watkins 2012-03-05T02:21:07Z http://www.needs.org/needs/public/search/search_results/learning_resource/summary/?id=1477C94B-62F5-401E-897E-9AF5523D5992 Wired Magazine article as part of their "This Day in Tech" column. Excerpt: "1949: After 94 hours, 1 minute of flying time, a Boeing B-50 named Lucky Lady II lands at Carswell Air Force Base, Texas, completing the first ever nonstop, around-the-world trip by an airplane. The flight covered 23,452 miles, averaging a ground speed of 249 miles per hour. The modified bomber required air-to-air refueling four times as it flew ever eastward. The Lucky Lady II departed Fort Worth, Texas, on Feb. 26 with the express goal of making the first nonstop transglobal flight. The airplane was an updated version of the B-29 that had fought in World War II and was close to being obsolete by 1949. Jet aircraft were the future. The Boeing B-52, which continues to serve as the mainstay of the U.S. bomber fleet today, would make its first flight just three years later. Despite the fact that officials knew the propeller-driven B-50 would not remain the premier bomber for long, there was a need to send a strong message to an evolving Cold War adversary that the United States military could fly anywhere in the world with one of its aircraft. The Lucky Lady II was actually the second aircraft set up for the around-the-world flight. The first B-50, Global Queen, experienced engine problems after taking off Feb. 25 and landed in the Azores. Lucky Lady II departed a day later under the command of Capt. James G. Gallagher and successfully completed the flight with a crew of 14. In the 45 years since Orville Wright flew 120 feet Dec. 17, 1903, aircraft had pushed the limits of distance. The first transglobal flight took place in 1924 and lasted 175 days, with numerous stops where major repairs were required to the Douglas World Cruisers. In 1931, Wiley Post flew a Lockheed Vega named the Winnie Mae around the world in 8 days, 15 hours." Sun, 04 Mar 2012 17:35:32 GMT Jason Paur http://www.needs.org/needs/public/search/search_results/learning_resource/summary/?id=1477C94B-62F5-401E-897E-9AF5523D5992 Jason Paur 2012-03-04T17:35:32Z http://www.needs.org/needs/public/search/search_results/learning_resource/summary/?id=E21339BE-A92C-4DA2-9387-E0AE162E63EC Video and article about record-setting paper airplane flight from the Discovery Channel. Excerpt: "What happens when a paper airplane fanatic and a former college quarterback team up to break the Guinness World Record for the longest flight by a paper airplane? They shatter it. John Collins, a producer at KRON-TV in San Francisco, has a side gig. He’s also a Paper Airplane Designer (apparently that’s a real thing), known as The Airplane Guy. Think of him as the Wright brother of paper aerospace engineering. For the last three or four years, Collins has been working on the ultimate fold that will take a paper airplane farther than any other paper airplane has flown before. But he knew he didn’t have the arm to launch the paper craft with enough velocity to break the record. So he enlisted professional help. So is throwing paper easier than throwing a football? Apparently not. “We made all 10 [official] throws. The record came on the fourth throw,” Ayoob told ESPN’s Page 2. “I probably made 50 throws on the day. My body is still sore.” And that’s without a 300-lb lineman trying to take his head off." Sun, 04 Mar 2012 17:24:42 GMT Eric Rogell http://www.needs.org/needs/public/search/search_results/learning_resource/summary/?id=E21339BE-A92C-4DA2-9387-E0AE162E63EC Eric Rogell 2012-03-04T17:24:42Z http://www.needs.org/needs/public/search/search_results/learning_resource/summary/?id=0F458A4F-4A09-4A34-9A52-C8422BF8B910 Report of a Workshop on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Workforce Needs for the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Defense Industrial Base is the summary of a workshop held August 11, 2011, as part of an 18-month study of the issue. This book assesses the STEM capabilities that the Department of Defense (DOD) needs in order to meet its goals, objectives, and priorities; to assess whether the current DOD workforce and strategy will meet those needs; and to identify and evaluate options and recommend strategies that the department could use to help meet its future STEM needs. Tue, 28 Feb 2012 22:11:30 GMT National Academy Press http://www.needs.org/needs/public/search/search_results/learning_resource/summary/?id=0F458A4F-4A09-4A34-9A52-C8422BF8B910 National Academy Press 2012-02-28T22:11:30Z http://www.needs.org/needs/public/search/search_results/learning_resource/summary/?id=503C2F45-73EB-4C6D-8251-575757D37510 The practice of engineering is continually changing. Engineers today must be able not only to thrive in an environment of rapid technological change and globalization, but also to work on interdisciplinary teams. Cutting-edge research is being done at the intersections of engineering disciplines, and successful researchers and practitioners must be aware of developments and challenges in areas that may not be familiar to them. At the U.S. Frontiers of Engineer Symposium, engineers have the opportunity to learn from their peers about pioneering work being done in many areas of engineering. Frontiers of Engineering 2011: Reports on Leading-Edge Engineering from the 2011 Symposium highlights the papers presented at the event. This book covers four general topics from the 2011 symposium: additive manufacturing, semantic processing, engineering sustainable buildings, and neuro-prosthetics. The papers from these presentations provide an overview of the challenges and opportunities of these fields of inquiry, and communicate the excitement of discovery. Sun, 26 Feb 2012 01:20:31 GMT National Academy Press http://www.needs.org/needs/public/search/search_results/learning_resource/summary/?id=503C2F45-73EB-4C6D-8251-575757D37510 National Academy Press 2012-02-26T01:20:31Z http://www.needs.org/needs/public/search/search_results/learning_resource/summary/?id=B0DA2B80-810D-4454-A922-D5BE407067BA The superball patent was filed by Norman Stingley of the Wham-O Manufacturing Company on Aug. 25, 1965 and was issued on March 22, 1966. Excerpt: "This invention relates to a toy and more particularly to a ball or sphere having extremely high resilience and a high coefficient of friction. The resilience of rubber balls is one of their most important characteristics. This is because the resilience of the ball material determines the “liveliness” and “bounce” of the ball and hence its utility in various sporting games and attractiveness as a toy for children. The resilient material normally used for making rubber balls is a polymer such as natural rubber or some synthetic analog of natural rubber such as polyisoprene." Sun, 12 Feb 2012 20:40:31 GMT U.S. Patent Office http://www.needs.org/needs/public/search/search_results/learning_resource/summary/?id=B0DA2B80-810D-4454-A922-D5BE407067BA U.S. Patent Office 2012-02-12T20:40:31Z http://www.needs.org/needs/public/search/search_results/learning_resource/summary/?id=977F6DE3-9671-44BA-838D-704EF1A16B31 History of the invention of the super ball. Excerpt: "Wham-O Manufacturing Co., the miracle-working maker of the Hula Hoop ® and Frisbee ® disc, bounced back into the news in 1965 with an explosive knob of rubber called Super Ball.® Dropped from shoulder level, a high potency Super Ball ® snapped nearly all the way back; thrown down, it could leap over a three-story building; flung into a wall with spin, it kicked back with remarkable reverse English. The supercharged sphere, about the size and color of a plum, was America's most popular plaything in the summer and fall of 1965. By Christmas, just six months after it was introduced by Wham-O ®, seven million balls had been sold at ninety-eight cents apiece. Proud father of the bouncing baby ball was a California chemist named Norman Stingley. In his spare time, he compressed a synthetic rubber material under 3,500 pounds of pressure per square inch and created a ball with unprecedented resilience. Stingley offered it to his employer, Bettis Rubber Company, of Whittier, California, but was turned down. Since the rubber hardpack tended to fall apart quickly, it was feared the product would never be marketable." Sun, 12 Feb 2012 20:32:53 GMT Phil Ament, The Great Idea Finder http://www.needs.org/needs/public/search/search_results/learning_resource/summary/?id=977F6DE3-9671-44BA-838D-704EF1A16B31 Phil Ament, The Great Idea Finder 2012-02-12T20:32:53Z http://www.needs.org/needs/public/search/search_results/learning_resource/summary/?id=C7DC9A95-352F-4453-A62A-86E76A5C86F5 Materials Science story of the invention of superballs. the story has two video demonstrations. Excerpt: "For such a simple set-up, the ball was invented surprisingly late in our history. It wasn't until 1965 that materials science could come up with a cheap way to get maximum bounce. As many parents suspect, the missing ingredient was something infernal: sulfur. Scientist Norman Stingley was playing around with polybutadiene, a substance made up of long strings of carbon atoms. The strings tangled together, letting polybutadiene retain its shape without shattering, but the whole concoction needed something more. Stingley added a little heat and sulfur, and something diabolical happened. Vulcanization, heating substances with sulphur, had been used before to make tires and raincoats. In the polybutadiene the process did what it always does, used the sulphur atoms to connect one string to the next at random points. Instead of a long string of tangled chains, which could be untangled, or at least pulled apart, the the substance became one big network of long strings tied together. It could be deformed, with force, but it would always snap back to where it started. What emerged was a hunk of material that was incredibly elastic. Happy with his discovery, Stingley named it Zectron, formed it into little lumps, marketed it with the Wham-O Manufacturing Company, and encouraged children around the world to hurl it around with reckless abandon." Sun, 12 Feb 2012 20:27:39 GMT Cool Science Club, Indiana Public Media http://www.needs.org/needs/public/search/search_results/learning_resource/summary/?id=C7DC9A95-352F-4453-A62A-86E76A5C86F5 Cool Science Club, Indiana Public Media 2012-02-12T20:27:39Z http://www.needs.org/needs/public/search/search_results/learning_resource/summary/?id=44FF46F2-EF11-434B-9D15-60630E0D1019 Engineering Pathway's "Today in History" blog for February 5. Today in History – February 5, 1901 -the loop-the-loop roller coaster ride was patented. Building on concepts from earlier vertical loop roller coasters (1850′s) this design relied on centripetal forces to hold the car in the loop while traveling at high speeds. Edward Prescot patented and build the Loop-the-Loop of steel in Coney Island (upper left photo). Ironically, Coney Island’s original gravity switchback railroad (see next paragraph) burned down in 1901, making way for the loop-the-loop. At the time, more people watched than dared to actually ride the looping roller coaster. They made more money charging to be in the viewing area than on the actual ride fees. Sun, 12 Feb 2012 01:21:34 GMT Alice Agogino http://www.needs.org/needs/public/search/search_results/learning_resource/summary/?id=44FF46F2-EF11-434B-9D15-60630E0D1019 Alice Agogino 2012-02-12T01:21:34Z http://www.needs.org/needs/public/search/search_results/learning_resource/summary/?id=EC33D29C-FDBC-46C5-8DDF-233B05A4FD81 These 4 training modules are the first of our new interactive study modules. These four focus on memorizing Allen Bradley Data tables and types. Depending on popularity, we will create more on other topics the training module users recommend . Sat, 28 Jan 2012 22:22:47 GMT Industrial Training, BIN http://www.needs.org/needs/public/search/search_results/learning_resource/summary/?id=EC33D29C-FDBC-46C5-8DDF-233B05A4FD81 Industrial Training, BIN 2012-01-28T22:22:47Z