Lily, Nathan, and I showed our Em3 and prototype Emflume1 to hundreds of visitors at ASEE in San Antonio this week. The conference, a gathering of engineering educators, ended Wednesday.
I was stunned by the response to both models. Engineering's been a tough market to crack for us because of recent changes in the way it's taught at universities. Lab exercises have to plug into specific national curriculum requirements, and new teaching tools like ours, lacking a background and curriculum, are hard to introduce.
At this meeting we talked to dozens of interested professors and non-university educators who were excited about the Em3 and Emflume. We've really turned a corner; most weren't too concerned about the curriculum problem and many were interested in helping us develop engineering curricula. All agreed the models were wonderful hands-on tools and that the models would be powerful outreach tools.
I had great success in getting feedback from educators on the Emflume1's design. It's clear the overall concept is near-perfect, but many made great suggestions for measurement tools, and all affirmed that a "desktop" flume was a great idea.
Thanks to everybody at LRRD for the many hours of difficult work required for us to host a booth at San Antonio. Lily and Nathan were absolutely wonderful colleagues who did all the heavy lifting for setup and teardown, and a fabulous job of talking to visitors.
And this just in, Lily and our models kick off the last day's coverage on "ASEE TV!"