Cancer is when cells in your body forget their original jobs and instead grow out of control. Cancer has many causes including tanning too much, cigarette smoking, and unhealthy diet. Avoiding these dangerous activities can prevent one from getting cancer, but sadly cancer can also be caused by things entirely outside of a person’s control. Cancer can be common within a family because of that family’s genetics. Just because someone in your family dies of cancer in no way means that you will get cancer too, but it does mean that you should be more careful because cancer may run in your family. There are many types of cancer. Common types include cancers of the lung, breast, and colon cancer. Wherever cancer is, it is a large threat and can cause serious problems.
Chemotherapy is used to kill the cancer cells by poisoning them. It’s no wonder that chemotherapy makes people feel sick because the chemicals used to kill the cancer cells also kill normal, healthy cells.
Through an experimental method called microencapsulation, the chemicals used in chemotherapy can be made less harmful. Microencapsulation involves putting something very small (the cancer drugs) into something else. Microencapsulations are created in a bath of oil, but to be useful they need to be separated from the oil.
Students will make a device that can separate microencapsulations (represented by marbles) from oil (represented by water) using the provided material. They will keep all marbles on the ramp, and then find a way to separate that supplies marbles to an area outside the area of the ramp.
This Guide provides the instructor information on how to run the design challenge with alternatives for materials and test setups as well as information to help make the design challenge a good educational experience.
Encapsulation Separation Video
The video conveys the societal impact of the student’s research that is the basis for the design challenge and will set the problem-solving context for students. The video also leads students through the design process. It indicates materials available, states what the criteria are for success and any constraints.
