“It’s not pronounced Mahna-mahna”: Creating a hands-on activity to teach first-year engineers about pressure measurement

Abstract

Chemistry is a fundamental course that all first-year engineering students must take. However, many students cannot make the connection between the material learnt in class and their growing understanding of engineering. This is exasperated in the Mechatronics program at the University of Waterloo which does not have any physical labs but focuses heavily on analysis. To address this issue, the authors developed a short 90-minute activity which the entire class completed during an open-ended design event. This activity had students experience basic lab practices and gain a further understanding of pressure measurement, and the course materia