Capstone:Current Safety

Ben Whittaker 2020
House	STEM
Advisor	Steven Okapal
Plans	OSU, Mechanical Engineering
Advice	Plan what you want to do. I have friends who are astounding in their fields and can easily create a project. They know how to do research and can acquire the skills needed to complete whatever they want. If this is not true to you, TSAS has a wonderful and talented staff willing to help you. The underlying problem I see with everyone helped or self-sufficient is what idea to start with. You need to find out what you are passionate about and create something that ties that to your future career or vice versa, planning that will be the biggest help to you and your project.
Type	Presentation
Subject	Electricity
Discipline	Science

My project is a talk about current flow and the dangers it may have, but mostly a better understanding of it. Once the talk is complete, you should walk away with a deeper knowledge of current as well as a simple definition for amperage, wattage and voltage. You will be able to read an electricity label and know whether or not that device is dangerous and/or lethal.

How It Began

I will give a talk about the dangers of electricity and teach my audience about amperage, voltage, and wattage. My goal is to teach in a way that all audience members can learn: visual, audial, and kinesthetic methods. Talks along with some form of presentation will fulfill two of the three categories but for the more tactile I would create a device like a shock pen or shock gum that will electrocute you upon a contact point. This device however will allow you to change the voltage and amperage with which you are shocked. That being a fun example and allowing kinesthetic learners to connect what I'm saying with a real world example, my objective would be complete.

How It Changed

I started with a simpler version of this talk because I was going to add an example of what I'm teaching. My goal was to teach the audience with visual, audial, and kinesthetic points for each type of learner. I was going to create a device capable of shocking you at almost any safe voltage and amperage but I no longer possess access to materials or anything I need to complete it so I will just give a talk.

Reflection

I knew the information I was providing beforehand, but I learned quite a lot through the process of trying to share that knowledge with others. creating a talk that has a lot of information in it was proven counterproductive as people may get more confused or less drawn toward the subject. It was a learning curve for me in finding a presentation that allows an audience to learn. The specific critical thinking skills involved there are probably ones teachers face weekly and ones I didn't know I needed to improve. A source less of knowledge and more of experience was the attempt to build the device proposed. I was not able to finish but I still was left with a more reasonable mindset and more experience on how to take an idea and present it as a finished product.