First-year students test their engineering "cents"

As a way of getting them to think about teamwork, problem-solving and economic design, students in the "Introduction to Engineering" course are given the task of building a "penny vehicle" to race using only four pennies, paper, thread and toothpicks. "It's a lot more difficult than it seems to be," said freshman Ron Rizzo. The teams raced their cars two at a time, releasing them at the top of a two-meter ramp and letting gravity do its work. The winners advanced to the next round, while the losers took a seat to mull over what went wrong. Civil and environmental engineer William C. Miller has staged the competition for seven years. "It's always a mystery every year," he said.
Feb. 23, 2011 | Philadelphia Inquirer