Students in Engineering in the Kitchen learn the foundations of electrical and computer engineering by disassembling and customizing kitchen devices
Korinna Spirko, E28, and Martyna Romanowski, E28, work on soldering wires during the Engineering in the Kitchen class. Photo: Alonso Nichols
Students in Emily Carlson’s course, Engineering in the Kitchen, may have had no previous experience with engineering as first-year Tufts students, but by the end of the semester, they’ll be able to work with a variety of hardware, figure out how sensors work, and maybe even repair a microwave that’s on the fritz.
“I really wanted to teach this course because I think it’s such an awesome learning opportunity. We don’t require any past knowledge of circuits and students don’t need to come in with any coding experience,” Carlson, an assistant teaching professor of electrical and computer engineering, said. “It’s a very open course. It’s not often you get to put in a curriculum that the course outcomes won’t be based on big exams.”
Engineering in the Kitchen was developed by Carlson’s colleague in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, assistant teaching professor Steven Bell, whose passion for cooking and spending time in the kitchen made him ask himself how the gadgets and tools he used on a regular basis work.
Emily Carlson instructs students in a recent Engineering in the Kitchen class. Photo: Alonso Nichols
“Engineering can be thought of as a field that requires you to be so specialized and to have taken a lot of math courses,” Carlson said. “But this is another way to introduce engineering to students and remind them they are using stuff all the time in the kitchen and that is engineering, too.”
Before students begin exploring the inner workings of an appliance of their choosing, Carlson goes over foundational topics like electricity and where it comes from, currents and paths for electricity to flow through, and how to build introductory circuits with a light-emitting diode or LED.
Then, the first assignment is to disassemble a kitchen device, which were selected and provided by Carlson. The students work with information from iFixit, an online provider of replacement parts, tools, and repair guides, to take apart and fix appliances like a toaster, air fryer, rice cooker, or blender.
An overhead view of kitchen gadgets and appliances students can use for their final projects. Photo: Alonso Nichols
Throughout the disassembly process, students learn about technical writing and about breadboards, which are bases used to build electronic circuits, and how to draw diagrams of circuits and discuss what might be going on inside them.
“It’s a great interactivity tool because it helps everyone in the class develop a similar foundational understanding,” Carlson said. “It gives students a chance to get a little more comfortable with these topics if they don’t have a lot of experience.”
In the second challenge, students all work with the same appliance, a microwave that Bell adapted for customization. With some of the wires stripped from the back, students can connect the three exposed wires used to control the microwave’s door function, power function, and ground, which connects a circuit to the earth and provides a safe way for excess electricity to escape.
“It’s called a pigtail and they connect their breadboards to it, then using code they’ve written and switches or whatever kind of interactive element they choose, they turn on the microwave with the goal of performing a specific task,” Carlson said.
A student works to solder wires during Engineering in the Kitchen. Photo: Alonso Nichols
Some students opt for common actions, like adding 30 seconds to the microwave’s time, or getting even more specific with shorter spans. One group created a button that was timed to heat up chicken tika masala from Trader Joe’s.
The exercise also teaches students about state machines, which model systems where in order to do one thing, another must happen. For instance, when opening the door of the microwave, the power should automatically turn off.
“Unless you write that in your code, the power is going to stay on,” Carlson warns. “If you open the door when the power’s on, the microwave in the lab has a siren on top of it that will go off, and it’s pretty loud.”
An interactive pumpkin was displayed at the NOLOP haunted house. Photo: Jenna Schad
Students also designed interactive pumpkins that were displayed at the NOLOP Makerspace haunted house on the Medford/Somerville campus, with elements like touch-activated color-changing eyes.
Ultimately, Carlson hopes students will walk away from the course having tried to solve a problem, even if they never find a solution.
“If you can’t get something to work, but you can tell me everything you tried, you’re still going to get a good grade,” Carlson said. “You went through the engineering process and you tried to troubleshoot, and sometimes, it’s just a matter of a part being bad. I think it’s a really cool way for students to learn all these different debugging techniques in real time.”
