The museum connected with Valley Catholic School about a STEM opportunity for 6th grade students. We soon discovered that they have four 6th grade classes with over 80 students. We cannot accommodate such a large group at the museum so reached out to Tektronix for assistance.
The Tektronix Women In Technology (WIT) group partnered with the vintageTEK museum and were able to arrange use of a large "living room" to hold the entire group and 6 individual classrooms. This event required a large number of Tektronix and vintageTEK museum volunteers.
The students walked to Tektronix and ate their sack lunch in the living room and were given an introduction and instructions for the day. The students were divided into six groups. The WIT and the museum each facilitated three STEM events that the smaller groups would rotate through.
Photo courtesy of Tektronix
This Tektronix WIT Career Talks event consisted of several Tektronix women engineers sharing their path into engineering and their experience and design of various Tektronix products. The students were engaged with questions and discussion.
Photo courtesy of Tektronix
Photo courtesy of Tektronix
This vintageTEK museum LED Instrumentation event consisted of using lab instruments to explore LED operation. The students connected up various TM500 instruments to power a LED with a variable DC voltage. They then explored the effects of powering the LED using pulses and controlling the brightness by varying the duty cycle.
Photo courtesy of Valley Catholic
This Tektronix WIT Oscilloscope breakdown event gave the students a hands-on experience with manufacturing assembly of components and modules in an oscilloscope. The students were divided into small groups and each had an oscilloscope to disassemble. Some of the groups even managed to put the oscilloscopes back together.
Photo courtesy of Valley Catholic
Photo courtesy of Valley Catholic
This vintageTEK museum Display Technology event consisted of an introduction to CRT and LCD displays. Two operational CRTs were demonstrated and the students could examine CRTs and electron guns. A microscope allowed exploring how an LCD renders colors from its red, green and blue sub-pixels and a partially-disassembled LCD enabled understanding the function of the backlight. Polarizing films were used to help explain how the liquid crystal material can modulate the light in LCDs.
Photo courtesy of Tektronix
Photo courtesy of Valley Catholic
This Tektronix WIT Paper Circuits WIT event consisted of creating a functional paper printed circuit using conductive tape, components, and a battery. Each student was given the materials and instructed how to "manufacture" their paper circuit to light an LED. The students completed and kept their manufactured paper circuit.
Photo courtesy of Tektronix
Photo courtesy of Valley Catholic
This vintageTEK museum Sounds and Waves event began with an introduction of the operation of an oscilloscope to measure frequency and explore wave shape and envelope on the characteristics of sound. Various objects and instruments were used including a guitar to demonstrate wave length vs. frequency, a synthesizer to demonstrate the higher pitch harmonics of various wave shapes, and a spring reverb for converting electrical waves into physical waves and back to electrical waves.
Photo courtesy of Tektronix
Photo courtesy of Valley Catholic
The students reassembled in the "living room" and participated in a raffle for some take-home items. This was a very gratifying experience and one of our most involved STEM events. We wish to thank Tektronix and the WIT group for the use of their facilities and their volunteers to assist with this STEM event.
The students sent us this card with their appreciation.
