In 2010 I was very fortunate to be selected as one of ten science teachers in Texas chosen for the UT Austin Master’s of Engineering Education (MASEE) program. This is a three year program where teachers of any science subject learn how to apply real world engineering principles in our classroom from some amazing, cutting edge UT education and engineering professors. For a copy of the thesis, download at the bottom of this page or go to the UT online library link here: Wireless power transfer in the classroom.
The master’s thesis project that I chose to do was to go through the engineering process and create lab equipment for high school students. The lab equipment that I chose to design is something I’ve always been fascinated with ever since I finished building my own Tesla coil – inductive power transmission (IPT). Since I teach physics we do touch on this very lightly when we study magnetism and Faraday’s law, but since technological improvements on the topic have increased dramatically, wireless power transfer is going to soon be a common reality and I felt that my students should learn about this as soon as possible.
Project goals:
- safe for classroom use
- open-source, plans freely available
- minimum assembly
- easy for a student or teacher to build
- easy to locate parts
- relatively inexpensive
- easy to use with minimal “out of the box” adjustment
- clear, measureable results
- versatile, multipurpose
- durable
- 3-5 year usage lifetime
- upgradable and modifiable
My thesis can be downloaded here at this link: