Day in the Life of Materials Engineer

For two crazy months in the summer of 2020, Miss D was an Ignited Teacher Fellow at Lockheed Martin, Space’s PMP Lab. Mechanical & Structural PMP Engineering at LM Space encompasses Mechanical and Structural Parts, Materials and Processes including thermal materials, surface treatments and coatings, mechanical piece parts, and contamination control engineering for satellites, rockets, and other space instruments. – East Palo Alto Academy Bulldog makers certainly don’t do this kind of work every day in the Dream Lab, right? WRONG. Since I have never been a professional engineer (nor attended a classic engineering educational program), my primary Ignited fellowship goals is to document then share the professional atmosphere and practices of an engineering shop or lab, and make connections around how we operate and learn in the makerspace classroom (Dream Lab). By reviewing a typical quality-controlled test cycle for LM Space PMP Lab project, learners in this lesson will visualize the steps a materials engineer takes to consider the structure, properties, processes, and performance of materials. Teams (or pairs) of learners will then answer a mini challenge to develop a simple composite, fused fabric, then test a new material to solve a more everyday problem than space flight, such as being waterproof or not ripping under weight of a common grocery item. NOTE: This lesson is 10 instructional hours inside of a larger Makerspace elective project-based learning unit (see more in Unit outline).