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Students -> Summer High School Research Program
The Jisan Research Institute Summer High School Research Program
June 29, 2009 through September 18, 2009
Student's Goals
Most students who participate in a summer research program have never participated in research before. As a result, they typically don't have any specific goals when entering a research program. In order to get the most out of the experience, however, it is important to carefully plan the summer. The primary student's goals have been listed below.
- Students will learn how to begin a research or design project.
The beginning of a research project is to learn what has been done from sources in the field. Students will begin their research by determining what the important parts of their project are, what parts are open to innovation, and what kinds of innovations they (the students) are capable of putting into place.
- Students will learn how to construct their own hardware.
Using JRI's machine shop, students will learn how to construct several of the things that will go into their designs. While the students will not become master machinists in one summer, a basic competence in the use of various pieces of machinery will be generated so that the students are capable of constructing simple pieces which may later be put together to build a complex device.
- Students will produce their own design of a specific technology.
By far, the most exciting part of the research is the creation of some piece of the overall puzzle or new technology. Students will launch into a design phase, which may take a week or two (depending on the student team). This design phase, will focus not only on what will be built, but how. It should be clear, once this phase is done, what the steps for constructing the various parts of the technology will be.
- Students will construct their own prototype technology.
Using the JRI machine shop, students will construct their own devices. Students will be assisted by JRI personnel, but the emphasis will be on the team actually constructing their own devices.
- Students will characterize their own prototype technology.
Once the device has been constructed, students will test the device, providing important engineering characterization of the device. The students will not only determine how well it works, but also clarify ways in which it might be improved. The results will be collected in a design and research report at the end of the summer.
Students completing all of these steps will have a real idea of what it is to design, fabricate, and characterize new technologies. As former participants in the JRI Summer Precollege Research Program have discovered, once these skills have been assimilated, students are capable of designing and building a wide range of things they may independently design. Some students go on to design and build their own devices using the skills they learned during the summer programs.
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