"K" week turned into a lesson in basic engineering principles
for Kindergarteners at Tomek Elementary School in Fenton when
Kettering students showed up to "play." Ms. Patty Johnson's
Kindergarteners were working on the letter "K" when Kettering
students showed up to have a little fun with the basic
principles of engineering. The "k" could have stood for
"krunch," "krash," and "krack" by the time Dr. Laura Sullivan's
Engineering Mechanics I-Statics class and the Kindergarteners
were finished testing the strengths of different materials
including toilet paper tubes, plastic cups and hard plastic
drinking glasses. Sullivan is associate professor of Mechanical
Engineering at Kettering. Teams of three to four Kindergarteners
worked with the "big" kids placing toilet paper tubes and other
cylindrical objects under a platform and then applying pressure.
Most of the pressure came from the "little" engineers standing,
sitting and hopping in ones, twos, threes and fours on the
platforms. What they learned was that toi