- Coming up on Extra Credit, we learn how doctors use zip lines to deliver medical supplies, learn what a civil engineer does and so much more.

Stay tuned.

(upbeat music) Hi, I'm Mrs. Pizzo, welcome to Extra Credit, where we meet interesting people, explore new ideas and discover fun places together.

Each episode, we'll introduce you to people who use math, science, sports, writing and the arts to make the world an interesting place.

Today's theme is engineering.

Do you know what a engineer does?

We'll find out soon, but first, I want you to meet our co-host.

- Hi, friends, my name is Calli and it's great to be with you.

Have you ever heard of a civil engineer?

Civil engineers design and build things like roads, buildings, airports, bridges and systems for water supply and sewage treatment.

Our friend Charmin is a civil engineer.

Let's hear more about what she does.

(upbeat music) - I am a civil engineer and I work on environmental projects.

I work in the water industry and I help bring safe, clean drinking water into the homes of many residents in the Greater Bay Area.

A great engineer is one who's an innovator, who's creative.

And I think in order to be creative, you have to tap into that right, the right side of your brain.

You have to have an interest in art.

And not having an interest in art is like not living, you know, not having an interest in math and science is not living.

Programs like STEAM, which stands for science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics, gives students an opportunity to really see what the process is like, that things don't just appear.

There's a planning phase, there's a design phase and there's a construction phase.

And I think having an understanding of what the process is for something to be brought to fruition is important not only in whatever career you decide, but just in life.

I work in operations and in operations, as an engineer, we support the people who basically make sure that pumps turn on, make sure that the reservoirs, the storage tanks get full, to make sure that we don't have a pipe leak someplace.

Part of my work is, also consists of thinking of ways to make what we do more efficient, whether it's operating our pumps in a more energy efficient way or producing energy by operating hydroelectric generators so that we can produce electricity to meet some of our own demand and to help others meet their own energy demand in a green way.

So, as far as, like, kind of what happens from day to day, so I work in an office, I do have some field work, but I spend a fair amount of time in front of a computer.

On the days that I get to go out in the field, those are the best days because it gives me an opportunity to sort of see things as they happen in the field.

A lot of times, you'll hear about people who are in the trades and engineers butting heads and some of that stems from engineers, for example, not getting enough opportunity to be out in the field.

It's one thing to design a facility or piece of equipment, but if you don't really know how it's used or if you've never seen it in the field, you can't be that effective as a designer.

One of the great things about my work as a civil engineer is that I am allowed to be an instrumental component in delivering safe drinking water to customers in the Greater Bay Area.

I think people sometimes, I think more so now, because we're in a drought, but I think a lot of times people don't really understand the value of water, the value of safe, clean drinking water.

We live in a world where there are a lot of people, a lot of children who die everyday from water related illness and we're fortunate to live in a country where we have an effective treatment systems and storage, you know, so that we can capture and have that water available as we need it.

I think there's definitely, we're all responsible for being conservative because it's the right thing to do, but even more so now because water scarcity is gonna be probably one of the biggest issues that we'll be faced with in the next 10 to 20 years.

I think that working for a company that helps to make this possible, you know, for the people that I love the most, I think is important.

When we have opportunities to do community outreach, that provides a vehicle, a mechanism to really talk to students, for example, about where they're water comes from and what they can do at home to conserve water and how does water even get to their home?

And I think it's, for many, for a long time, it's been like this black box, you know, and you can ask people, like, "Oh," kind of, "why did you choose your cell phone carrier?"

And they can say, "Oh, yeah, I picked this company because their network has, you know, expands this far and my calls never drop," and they can tell you a lot more than you would think that they would know about a cellular network.

But if you ask people, "Where does your water come from?"

"Do you know how it's treated?"

They're like, "Hmm, that's a good question, I don't know."

So, to be able to educate people in that way I think is great.

Some of the most important skills that you can develop right now to pursue any field, but especially engineering, is critical thinking skills.

You have to be a problem solver and you have to be someone who wants, who has a interest in seeing an improvement in whatever.

I think if you are someone who is sort of okay with the status quo and doesn't believe in progress, engineering is not for you.

There are parts of our personalities that are very much mathematical, very technical, very organized in the way we think, but I think that a great engineer is one who's a innovator, who's creative.

And I think in order to be creative, you have to tap into that right, the right side of your brain, you have to have an interest in art.

And not having an interest in art is like not living, you know, not having an interest in math and science is not living.

I think what people fail realize sometimes is that math and science is in everything.

Everything.

I mean, you can create a mathematical equation by analyzing the leaf of a tree, you know, or thinking about, like, how music is composed or a graphic design you see.

There's some component of math or science in any of those areas and I think it's important for children, especially, to recognize that relationship early on.

I think that where art and science intersect is, provides us an opportunity to teach children about math in a way that doesn't seem like a foreign language.

I have an example of an engineer who is also an artist and I know several engineers who are artists, this particular artist is a painter and an illustrator, her name is TeMika Grooms, and she and I met at Georgia Tech.

And so, we became really great friends, but it wasn't until I graduated from Georgia Tech and, that I even knew that she, herself, was an artist.

And the reason I found out is she sent me a Christmas card with an illustration of her daughter's face and I was like, "Wow, did you do this?"

And she's like, "Oh yeah, it's just something I do on the side."

And I was like, "Wow, you know, this is pretty great."

And so, she's a structural engineer.

So we went on to pursue our careers as engineers and then years later, yeah, we've kept in touch, but we've really reconnected because I told her that I had started art, as well.

And I said, you know, "Are you still, are you still painting, are you drawing?"

And she said, "Yes, but I'm trying to sort of push myself into the direction of becoming an art professional as a painter."

And she has since had her first exhibit in Atlanta and she's created a book of illustrations and it's about refugees, child refugees who come over to the United States and what their experience is like.

The name of the book is "They Call Me Esmeralda".

And I thought, "Wow, this is great that you are, you're showing your work, but you're also showing it in a way that speaks to an experience that many people here know nothing about."

- Wow, Charmin does some interesting and important things as a civil engineer.

She works with water everyday.

Let's check out a gravity defying trick with water on this episode of ECHO Live from the Michigan Science Center.

(upbeat music) - I'm gonna show off one of my favorite science experiments that I have set up right here and I'm gonna set you up for something that you can try at home.

So I want to start a series of gravity defying experiences and experiments that you can try in your home or in your classroom together after we do our quick debrief and overview right here on ECHO Live.

Let's get started with some science.

Now, today we said we'll be talking about something gravity defying and I'm gonna tie this all back to convection, or the movement of hot and cold substances in chemistry.

For this experiment, you'll only need a few items and I have them all down here on the table.

You'll need four identical cups, clear cups will work best, so glass or plastic.

I've got four of those.

I have two different colors food coloring, I have blue and red.

And you also need two different temperatures of water, so I've been keeping some of my science H2O in the fridge leading up to our program and just before we got started, I unplugged my kettle, which has been warming up some water over here.

Now, for this, you'll need two cups of each liquid and before our episode, I actually just put a couple drops of red food coloring in these first two cups.

So let's go ahead, add in some water.

Now, you'll want to fill them all the way to the top or at least almost all the way to the top to get the best results out of this experiment.

So remember, just like on the sink when you are washing your hands in the bathroom, red is going to designate hot water, red is hot, unlike our stars, but just like the sink, red means hot and blue means cold.

So, I've put a couple drops of blue food coloring into my last two cups or beakers prior to starting here today and we'll just fill those ones almost all the way to the top, as well.

Now, for this experiment, what we're going to be doing is stacking these cups in various orders.

We'll start by stacking our red water on top of our blue water.

Remember, red means hot and blue means cold.

The final piece of equipment that you'll need for this experiment is some sort of laminated or plastic card.

So I just have a laminated piece of paper here in my studio, but you could use a playing card or anything that is not going to absorb water, so that you can use it for stacking.

So I'm gonna go ahead, take my piece of laminated card, put it flat on top of my hot water, and we said in our first experiment, or our first part of our experiment, going to take this beaker, carefully flip it upside down, and you'll notice I'm doing this over a tray, so that I try to spill as little as possible, and then we're just going carefully try and stack our two cups.

Now, you want to line them up as carefully as possible and then, what we're going to do is I'm going to remove the card in between.

Now, you can make a guess, if you are tuning in in the chat, tell me a guess, or a hypothesis, about what do you think will happen when I remove the card that is right now separating our two temperatures of liquid.

So, we've got red, hot, on top and blue, cold, on bottom.

Tell me what you think is going to happen and I'm just going to carefully scoot my laminated card off to the edge, making sure that my two cups are completely lined up and we are just going to go ahead and remove that card.

So let's see if any of those guesses or hypotheses are correct in three, two, one.

And would you look at that?

Our red and blue water are staying, for the most part, entirely separate, therefore, defying gravity in our first gravity defying experience of this series.

Now, what's really going on, right?

We said this ties back to convection.

Convection actually works a lot like a lava lamp, which you can actually see on my virtual background behind me.

In a lava lamp, when the wax, or the liquid in the bottom, starts to warm up as it's heated by the lamp, it then starts to rise.

So convection tells us that as atoms and molecules rise, or heat up, they will rise to the top because they become less dense.

As they cool back down, the longer they're away from that heat source, so the farther they get from the lamp in our lava lamp, the colder they start to get.

As they cool back down, those molecules will sink back to the bottom, but then they're touching the lamp, so they warm and they reach back up to the top.

That process repeats itself over and over and over again as long as you have two different temperatures of liquids interacting.

The same thing happens with our weather outside.

We have what we have hot and cold fronts or hot and cold regions of air that can sometimes come in contact with each other.

The reason, in this experiment, that our two colors stay separate is that we put them in the right spot according to convection.

We put the warm water on top where it wants to be and we put the cold water on bottom where it would like to be.

But let's see what happens when we stack them in the opposite direction.

So we'll carefully scoot that one off to the side, trying not to disturb it, but let's see what happens this time if we stack the blue or cold water on top.

Remember that convection tells us that warm molecules will rise and cool molecules will sink.

So if you have a guess about what might happen in our second experiment when I remove the card, now is the time to type it in the chat.

On the count of three, I'm going to remove our laminated card.

And if you've took a guess about what might happen in the first one and you weren't expecting them to stay separate, maybe you'll be right this time around.

So let's go ahead, let's remove that card separating our hot and cold liquids in three, two, one.

Oh no.

We have an entirely homogenous purple cup of liquid.

Our water rushed past each other, just like the air outside does if those hot and cold fronts meet in the wrong orientation.

The hot water, which was on the bottom, rose to the top as quickly as it could pushing past all those blue cold molecules as those cold blue molecules sank down to the bottom.

It happened very quickly, which resulted in a nice beautiful purple mixture of liquid.

So remember, this activity is safe to try at home.

You can just watch this video again and repeat it for yourself, show your family, show your friends and we'll be bringing you lots and lots more of these activities and experiments that you can try at home.

- Are you ready for a daily math challenge with Diane?

Last time we helped Diane finish plans for a sandbox, now she'll need our help to figure out how much liner is needed to keep all the sand in the sandbox.

Let's help Diane solve this problem.

(upbeat music) - Hey everyone, Diane here.

Gosh, am I glad you're back.

I've been working on these sandbox plans and I seem to be a little bit stuck.

We got the outside wood taken care of, but now I'm supposed to put a liner at the bottom to keep the sand from escaping.

Who knew that sand would try to run away?

I've got the plans and I got our notes from last time.

Do you think you could help me figure this part out?

Just to recap, we have one L-shaped sandbox in this plan and you can see the dimensions here.

So, how are we going to figure out how much liner we need?

My thought is to just buy a bunch and guess, but I don't think the neighborhood would appreciate that.

So when we're thinking about trying to stay on budget, making accurate plans is important.

So let's take a look at some of the tools that I have here and see if anything pops out at you to try and figure out how much liner we would need to cover the area of the sandbox.

Hmm.

Yeah, my gut is pushing me towards the ruler.

It's for measuring things and I definitely need a number to say, "Yes, I need whatever feet of liner," but how would I use it?

I'm trying to cover all this space and the ruler seems like it may just take a long time to measure all the way down.

I'm sure we could use it, but maybe we'll come back to this tool at another time.

So let's take a look at these tools again.

Ah, the tape measure might not be much different than the ruler.

What are you thinking?

What was that?

Oh, someone noticed these squares?

I like your thinking.

These squares look like they might be helpful to figure out the area being covered.

Before we start placing these down, take a little bit to make a prediction of how many of these squares, units, you think we'll need.

(upbeat music) All right, so let's count these up.

Help me count and also see if you notice anything.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64.

Hoo, that was a lot of square feet up there.

If we count all these up, we got 64 square feet.

I'm nervous about having to make sure that my counting is accurate, especially if I decide to make something bigger than this.

So let's take a look and see if we can find a strategy to make this easier.

Maybe you could look closely and share with me what you see.

What was that?

Oh, you noticed rectangles making the L shape?

That's interesting.

Where are they?

Nice.

You saw a six foot by eight foot rectangle and then a four foot square, but how could that be helpful?

I see what you're saying.

I could definitely use the rectangular parts to figure out the whole area.

That's still a lot to count, though.

Do you notice anything that might make finding the area, even of these parts, easier to keep track of?

Yeah, I noticed that, too.

There are six rows of eight and four rows of four in the other part.

That seems to connect to the side lengths.

As I think about it more, this looks a lot like how we represent multiplication.

I wonder if that would work.

Let's see.

I know that six times eight is 48 and I know that four times four equals 16.

If we add 48 square feet and 16 square feet, we have 64 square feet.

That was what we found when we counted all those squares.

Oh, what was that?

You saw another way to find the area?

How did you do it?

Oh, that's interesting.

Did all y'all hear that?

They saw a different way to partition the sandbox to have two rectangles.

So what they did was go all the way across the bottom.

So, instead of just having the four foot square, there was a four foot by 10 foot rectangular, wow, rectangle along the bottom.

As we look at this, what would be the dimensions for the rectangle up here?

It is tough.

The eight foot dimension was split, but I don't want to just guess how long that part is, I need to know for sure to make sure that I'm being accurate.

Oh, I think I heard someone say something.

So the four foot section of the bottom rectangle is going to leave four feet for the upper rectangle?

Nice.

All right, so now I have two spaces.

One with a 10 foot by four foot rectangle and the other with a six foot by four foot rectangle.

Well, I know that 10 times four equals 40 and I also know that six times four equals 24.

If I add those together, I end up needing 64 square feet again.

It's amazing how that worked out.

It looks like I'll be adding 64 square feet of liner to my list.

That sand won't escape on my watch.

Finding the area of a shape like this is pretty cool.

There are a lot of different ways that we could partition one of these figures.

What would you do for a figure that was more like a U shape?

How would you partition this one to make it more manageable?

Oh, I like that idea, going straight across the bottom.

I heard someone else, they just wanted to do vertical lines.

Which way makes more sense to you?

Today, we looked at finding the area of an L-shaped sandbox to figure out how much liner we would need.

We found that if we partitioned a complex figure into rectangular pieces, we can find the area of the parts and then find the total area with those.

As we keep looking at area, keep that in mind and keep looking for those patterns as we are finding more areas.

I think these plans are ready to be checked over and then we can get to building.

But I wonder if we could use side lengths and multiplication to help us find the area for other projects that I have started thinking about.

Thanks for all your help.

See y'all.

(upbeat music) - Welcome to Inpact At Home, where we practice interrupting sitting with activity.

I'm Tiwa Ajibewa.

- And I'm Lexie Beemer and we're here to help get you moving for the next eight minutes.

You'll be surprised at what these moments of movement can do for you and the rest of your family, so you can stay active and healthy at home.

- So go ahead, get up and let's start moving.

All right everyone, for this next movement activity, we're going to do AMRAPs, or as many reps as possible, starting off with 10 squats, 10 sit ups and then finishing off with 10 jumping jacks.

I'll demonstrate all three activities as follows.

So, 10 squats, make sure that your feet are shoulder width apart, hands out just like this and just go down just like this.

Then, we'll also do 10 sit ups.

So, you go on the ground just like this.

Feel free to modify by putting your feet up or on the ground.

(upbeat music) You'll do that 10 times and then you'll finish off each round with 10 jumping jacks.

So I'm sure we all know what jumping jacks are, but again, I'll demonstrate.

(upbeat music) Perfect.

- So after each round of 10 squats, 10 sit ups and 10 jumping jacks, that equals one round, so we'll come to our board and we'll write a one under our names and you guys can do this at home and follow along, as well, to keep track of how many rounds we get to.

So go ahead and get started.

So, ready, set, go.

10 squats, good job.

- Two.

- Two, three, keeping our heels down, four, five, six, chest up, seven, eight, nine, 10.

Good job, now 10 sit ups.

- Perfect.

- Try to follow along as best as you can.

You can do them like Tiwa or like myself.

Two, three.

Be aware of your surroundings.

Seven, eight, nine, 10.

Great job.

Now we're gonna do 10 jumping jacks.

Ready, go.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10.

Woo, great job, guys, that's one round.

- Woo, one round.

- [Lexie] Give ourself a second.

- Perfect, shake off.

- Catch our breath.

- All right.

- Good job and let's go into the next round.

Go ahead, Tiwa, lead us through.

- All right, 10 squats.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10.

All right.

- Good job.

- 10 sit ups now.

Feel free to modify as you wish.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10.

- Great job.

- All right, you're all doing very good.

So lastly, 10 jumping jacks.

One, two, three, - You can modify them, just go out to the side like this a little slower.

- Four, five, six, seven, - Half jumping jacks.

- Eight, nine, 10.

- [Lexie] Hoo, great job, two rounds down.

- [Tiwa] Two rounds.

- [Lexie] How many can we get to?

- Let's see.

- All right, round three, 10 squats.

One, two, three, remember, heels down, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10.

Great job, keep it up, keep it moving.

- All right, 10 sit ups.

- if you fall behind, that's okay, just pick back up where we are.

Two, three, four, - Make sure to keep your form.

- Five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10.

Great job.

10 jumping jacks.

We'll slow these down to catch our breath.

Ready, go.

One, two, three, - Now I've modified mine a little bit.

- four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10.

Woo, great job.

- That's three rounds.

You guys are doing a great job.

All right, maybe do a little stretch.

- Sure.

- Okay.

Stretch out your arms.

- All right, let's get back into it, round four, 10 squats.

- One, two, three, four, five, you guys are doing great, everyone's doing great, eight, nine, 10.

- Great job, less than two minutes left, let's see how many reps we can get.

One, - one, - Two, - two, - Three, - three, - Four, - four, - Five, - five, six, seven, - seven, - Eight, nine, 10.

- Good job.

10 jumping jacks, we're gonna push it here towards the end.

- One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10.

- [Lexie] Good job, four rounds, - Four rounds.

- let's try to get one more.

- We've got one more minute left, let's see if we can get through one more round.

- Let's go, great job.

One, two, three, four, - You take your time.

- Five, six, keeping those heels down, seven, eight, nine, 10.

Great job, 10 sit ups.

You got it, finish strong, finish strong.

One, three, four, - Five, - Six, - six, - Seven, - seven, eight, nine, 10.

All right.

- Good job.

One, two, three, - Five seconds left.

- Four, five, six, keep it up, seven, eight.

And great job.

- Great job, everyone.

Wonderful.

I hope you enjoyed today's movement break.

Inpact At Home is a chance to apply the skills you may have learned in your PE class to improve your health.

- To learn more about the health benefits associated with movement, visit inpactathome.umich.edu.

- Now, don't forget to fill out your daily log.

We will see you again during our next workout.

(scribbling) (kid laughing) - [Narrator] Support for this program is provided by the Michigan Public Health Institute and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.

- I've heard we have another member from the Dr. Blotch family demanding some brilliant writing from us.

Let's find out more about this week's challenge, which involves creating an invention to solve a problem.

Get your engineering, problem solving thinking caps on.

I wonder what problem we'll solve with our invention.

(upbeat music) - Welcome back to 826 Michigan's writing challenge, we're here for week four, bringing you some virtual writing activities, so that you can write- (Dr. Blotch coughing) - [Dr. Blotch] I beg your pardon.

Mergin, what's this, now who's writing challenge are you speaking about?

- Oh, hello, Dr. Blotch, yup, I guess it is your writing challenge.

That is correct there, Mergin.

Now, as you know, do you know which of the Doctors Blotch you are currently speaking to?

I am the great, the fearsome, the marvelously pungent Dr. Thaddeus Blotch, uncle to the Liberty Street Robot Shop sale and so on and so forth.

And do you know what, London?

I almost canceled this call this week because I am busy, so very busy.

- What are you up to, Dr. Blotch?

- [Dr. Blotch] I knew you would ask that.

So I am constantly thinking about new ways to make money and these times are no exception.

So I was eating my pickled booger, bologna and limberger jam sandwich the other day and you know what I thought?

Isn't someone down to sell robots to the good people of Antarctica?

- Dr. Blotch, are there any people in Antarctica other than you?

- [Dr. Blotch] Of course there are people in Antarctica, Margin, it's a whole continent.

I am not seeing them right now because, well, I lead people into what's called social distancing.

I mean, every time I even see a penguin, I sprint in the opposite direction as fast as my legs will carry me, then I tell it to the whale, which'll find the penguin.

Now, where was I?

Yes, before you brought up that nonsense question, right.

Robot Store, money, king of the world.

So, I needed help, but I thought, "Hope I do catch, the market is literally flaming hot for robots right now and I need," that word starts with H, uh, help?

Help, yes.

- What do you need help with, Dr. Blotch?

- [Dr. Blotch] I am very glad you asked that, of course, I knew you would.

Now, I need booger farmers, no wait, another word, writers to create brand new electrical adventures that the world has never seen before.

I want the Antarctica Robot Supply and Repair to offer unique machines that help solve any kind of problem one can think of.

It could be a silly problem or a serious problem, however, I need machines.

- Oh, so, so we're creating inventions, Dr. Blotch?

- [Dr. Blotch] Precisely, Margin, and immediately - Uh, it's Megan.

- you ought to do it, sir.

First, the tiny brains, uh, sorry, writers would need to think of a problem that they'd like to see solved with an invention.

It could be something silly, like making their brains bigger or it could be a real serious problem, like making them all disappear.

Your machine will make all the foods you don't like taste like gummy worms.

- Wow.

Okay, so it could be silly or a serious invention.

- [Dr. Blotch] Ah, yes, indeed.

Next, writers should design a prototype of their invention.

A prototype is a, well, it's a fancy word for the first version of the invention you create.

It is where you form your ideas and test them out all at once.

There are several different ways that a writer can do this.

All writers should begin with a sample piece of paper to draw and label their prototype.

Finally, I also recommend that they create a 3D prototype of their invention.

They could go rummaging about in their recyclables at home to find items for building or they could use other materials, such as blocks or Lego.

Sometimes building something in 3D can help writers to think of new and better ideas.

- Okay, so students are creating an invention that solves a problem and then drawing or possibly building it?

- Yes, then finally the probably tiny little children should create a pitch that sells their products to me.

A pitch is a short speech that allows you to convince people to buy your invention.

And I need that, both, when I consider including their invention in my Antarctica store and also when I try to convince the good people of Antarctica they absolutely need this new product.

In their pitch, they should make me feel as though I absolutely need this product in my life and why my life is so much more difficult and miserable without it.

There's a pitch planner I've sent you, you can give it to the children if they need it.

- Okay, Dr. Blotch, that all makes sense, most of it.

- [Dr. Blotch] Uh, bad bye for now.

(playful music) - Last year I found out I was colorblind.

Since one of my favorite things to do in my free time is paint, I've had to learn how to adapt and problem solve by reading labels and asking for help.

In this next story, learn how doctors also had to adapt and problem solve by using zip lines to get supplies to hard to reach places.

(upbeat music) Hi, I'm Ryan and I'm the head of software at Zipline.

Zipline operates across Africa using drones to make lifesaving blood deliveries.

We deliver medical products, like blood and vaccines to places that otherwise can't be reached.

We all deal with different types of problems everyday and one way or another, we come up with solutions.

But did you know there's actually a series of steps you can take for solving any problem?

It's called the problem solving process and it has four basic parts.

One, define: identify the problem.

Two, prepare: research previous solutions and brainstorm new ones.

Three, try: put a plan into action and test to see what works.

And four, reflect: review what worked and what didn't and how you might change your approach in the future.

Let's take a look at how this process is used in the real world by looking at where I work, Zipline.

At Zipline, we started by defining the problem.

First, when people need blood, they need blood fast.

Second, blood is very hard to store because there are many different types and it expires quickly.

And third, most of the world does not have roads we can rely on for delivery.

The next step was to prepare a solution.

First, we traveled to Africa and met with doctors, the people on the ground who are most familiar with these problems.

We learned that storing the blood in one place would really help if only there was some way of getting the blood from that place to remote clinics on demand.

Next, we came up with all kinds of ideas and really let our imaginations fly.

The solution we thought might work was an airplane shaped drone that could fly really far, really fast, over all kinds of rough terrain.

When it flew over its destination, it would parachute drop a package of blood to the doctors on the ground, then return home.

Now it was time to try this all out.

Thanks to previous medical research, we knew techniques for building a blood storage facility.

So we built one in a central location, so that we could deliver blood to almost anywhere in the country.

Then, we built drones, a lot of drones.

We tested how to fly the drones, turn them around and recover them.

And as we tried, we had successes and we had plenty of failures.

We quickly learned that dropping the blood from the sky worked really well, but we also learned problems, like weather and hardware failures could slow us down a lot.

So, as we tried, we had to go back and prepare new solutions as we defined new problems.

Finally, we had something that worked.

(upbeat music) It was time to look at what we had done and really reflect on how it had gone.

We reflected on our original definition of the problem and asked if our solution was better or worse than what existed before.

We even started to think about how our solution might be used to address other problems.

Could it work for delivering medicine or even organs?

Could it work in reverse and collect items from distant locations?

And could we get this solution to work in other countries?

For each of these questions, we went back and we redefined our process and we made it better.

The problem solving process works in all kinds of areas, creative, personal, existential, you name it.

By using these four steps, you can figure out a process to make anything work.

(upbeat music) - I think it's really important for girls to study computer science.

I think for a long time, the world thought that some things were for boys and some things were for girls and everyone understands now that boys and girls can have equal opportunity.

- If we could just, you know, support girls and give them that initial encouragement, then we can start balancing the scales and then we won't even have to play with the equation because it will just be a natural flow.

- To be able to code gives you the freedom to build anything and that is just so empowering.

- I like having that power in my own hands to express what's in my imagination using programming.

- Just the experience of programming gives you access to a new method of thinking.

Everything becomes the steps that you can take towards a solution and that is just extremely valuable.

- You know, it's one thing to use software, it's a totally different thing to get to change how the software you use actually works.

- Yeah, all of my favorite memories from computer science are actually programming together with teams.

I mean, I don't think CS is a solo thing, I mean, nothing is, if you want to build something amazing, you usually have to do it in a team and CS is no different.

- You all live in a time where expressing yourself, learning about different people, making a business and a real difference in your communities is all totally possible.

With computers, it's right at your fingertips.

- It's not about being a girl or being a boy, it's about being talented.

Computer science needs more talent people who are not afraid of being creative and making the world a better place.

Jump into it, learn, just try and take one class, try and take, give it one hour.

It's amazing what you can learn in one hour.

- And that's what's so exciting about Hour of Code, all of you are able to participate from all parts of the country, at all ages, from all different backgrounds and that's what will create the right opportunities for everyone.

- Every girl deserves to take part in creating the technology that will change our world and change who runs it.

I challenge girls in every single country to learn one hour of code.

- Technology touches every part of our life, so if you can change technology, you can change the world.

- Wow, Charmin does some interesting and important things as a civil engineer.

She works with water everyday.

Let's check out a gravity defying trick with water on this episode of ECHO Live from the Michigan Science Center.

(upbeat music) - I have with me today a challenge that we like to call the balancing nail challenge.

This is a really amazing physics trick that you can very easily try at home if you have just some nails, a hammer and a piece of wood laying around.

The challenge is very simple.

Today we are going to be figuring out if we can balance 10 nails on the top of just one nail.

So the only pre-work I've done before our episode today is I've gone ahead and I have nailed one nail into just a scrap piece of wood that I had laying around here in the studio.

So this is going to be the balance point or what we might call the fulcrum of our experiment today.

And again, our challenge is to take 10 additional nails, so that's a total of 11 nails you'll need to construct this challenge on your own, and we are going to see if we can get all 10 of these nails that I have in my hand to balance right here on the top of this nail.

Now there's only a couple of rules we have to follow, is since they do need to be balanced, that means that we can't be using the piece of wood, the table or your own hands in order to assist them, they need to be truly balanced on just this one nail.

So, when I started to think through this challenge, right, I had to first think about what does it mean to balance, right?

What does it mean to balance?

Well, in physics, when we're talking about balance, we're really just talking about getting a center of mass onto one central point.

Now we obviously balance, right?

When we walk around everyday, maybe if you are into playing any sort of sports, you might have a great sense of balance.

But what balance means, right, is that all of your mass is generally lined up over your center.

If you lean too far in either direction, it becomes pretty difficult to balance, which is exactly what would happen down here in our balancing nail challenge.

So let's first start with just one nail and let's see if we can find that center of mass, that central point that this nail can balance on.

Now, if I were balancing on the table, right, it's pretty easy for me to just put it straight up and down because the mass is equal across this center line or this central access, right?

There's an equal amount of weight in every opposite direction and so the balance of this nail remains upright.

But it becomes a little bit trickier, right, when we try to balance it on top of our nail that's been pounded into the wood here.

We have to be very careful, so before we let it go, making sure that all that mass is lined up right over the center.

But in this configuration, right, it doesn't leave me a lot of room to add the next nail.

I could try to scoot it over, but I think that our center of mass for each of these two nails now is just a little too far off to the side and so they don't quite stay.

But let's try a different orientation.

Maybe if we try balancing the nail horizontally instead of vertically, we can find a different center of mass.

So if we go ahead and set it down exactly equal, we'll notice that this end, the end of my nail that has the head on it, is just a little bit heavier, so even though I'm lining up in the very center of the nail, since this end is a bit heavier, I actually have to adjust my center of mass slightly off to the side if I'd like to get them to balance.

You have to be very careful when letting this go.

So balancing even just one nail is pretty difficult.

Let's see if we can add another.

If I'm very careful and I line it up just perfectly, not having great luck, right?

Now, like we said, this is a challenge, but I'm here to show you the answer, or at least my answer to the balancing nail challenge.

I thought through all sorts of solutions.

I considered flipping this upside down, stacking nails on top of the wood, but I didn't have great luck that way.

But instead, what I though I could do is instead of constructing my solution to this balancing nail challenge on top of this nail, which requires a lot of very, very careful movement, I thought maybe I could design something that is perfectly balanced down here on the table, which I can then balance that final product here on top of the nail.

So, let me show you what I came up with, and keep in mind that just like in any engineering challenge, like the one I'm showing you here, there's never just one correct answer.

So I'm gonna show you what I came up with, but I definitely would love to know if any of you can come up with your own solution to the balancing nail challenge.

All right, so what you're noticing I'm doing is I'm taking my one single nail, which I know I can balance on top of this nail here, and I'm treating that as my central point.

If I add a nail to this side in this direction, I need to add something to counterbalance it in the opposite direction, which is keeping that center of mass close to the center of my one nail.

So I am just alternating nails back and forth, back and forth, one on each side, trying my best to keep all of the mass as centered as possible, so that I can easily balance it on the fulcrum.

All right, now we talked about, right, that, the head of the nail, the flat part on top is the heaviest part of the nail and so that's actually helpful in the design that I've created, is keeping all of that mass pretty close to the center, it's also going to help when I go to balance the rest of this challenge here on top of my nail.

So far, my nail is pretty balanced.

I've got one central point and I've got one, two, three, four nails on this side and one, two, three, four nails on this side.

But what to do with my final nail here, right?

If I were to add it to this side, it could very slightly throw off my balance.

Same thing goes if I were to put it on the other side.

But what I can actually use this final nail for is actually going to help me when I go to transport my design.

Because if I were to pick it up now, you'll notice, didn't quite work out the way I had planned, right?

So we'll just quickly set it back up, one nail on each side, remember, always alternating, keeping our center of mass as close to the center as we can possibly get it and then, instead of picking it up just like this, I'm going to use my 10th nail, or really my 11th nail in the entire challenge, to form kind of a lock.

So when I go to pick up my design this time, the heads of those nails are actually going to grab on and it's going to hold my entire design together.

Now, this is the last step, but it is, of course, the most important, is getting my design to balance on top of our one single nail head.

If you try this at home, don't let it go too early, make sure that you're shifting back and forth and would you look at that.

10 nails balanced on the top of just one nail.

Remember, if you'd like to try this at home, of course, get some adult supervision because you will need some nails and a hammer.

But this is a pretty fun challenge, really inexpensive and easy for you to build and it, of course, ties in the important principles in physics talking about center of mass.

So, this is the solution that I've come up with, but like we said, this is not the only answer.

I wonder if you at home could find a different way to balance 10 nails on a single nail or do you think you could balance more?

What if I told you that I've been able to balance 32 nails on the top of just one nail by building off of this design and tweaking it ever so slightly?

- Scholars, I learned so much about engineering today.

What did you think of that nail challenge?

Until next time.

- On the next episode of Extra Credit, we make our own bath bombs, learn how computers work, discover careers and robotics and so much more.

Get your extra credit on the Michigan Learning Channel.

- [Narrator] This program is made possible in part by Michigan Department of Education, the state of Michigan and by viewers like you.

(upbeat music)