Circles and ratios in engineering
A collection of resources to provide ideas for setting circles and ratio in the context of engineering, together with materials to support teaching of these topics.
'Simple Gears and Transmission' considers how transmissions are designed and how efficient the design is. The areas of maths needed include circles and ratios.
There are two supporting resources. 'Running Tracks' gives the opportunity for scale drawing and calculations involving pi. 'Ratio Makes Sense' is a SMILE resource, with the sections on 'Walking to school', 'Pencils', and 'Ratio problems' helpful as a prelude to the 'Simple Gears and Transmission' activity.
Simple Gears and Transmission
This resource considers how transmissions are designed so that they provide the force, speed and direction required, and how efficient the design is.
Students consider the physical characteristics of two gears, use circle formulae to calculate the number of teeth a gear has and consider the number of rotations performed by differing sized gears.
Running Tracks
This activity would be useful to use prior to the 'Simple Gears and Transmissions'. This Cre8ate maths activity gives the opportunity for accurate measurement, scale drawing and calculations involving pi. If there is access to a running track, students look at how the track is marked out and distances measured accurately for runners in each of the lanes.
Ratio Makes Sense
This resource from SMILE focuses on ratio. The sections 'Walking to school', 'Pencils', and 'Ratio problems' would be the most relevant to use prior to students working on the 'Simple Gears and Transmissions' activity.
