“The mechanical Hound slept but did not sleep, lived but did not live in its gently humming, gently vibrating, softly illuminated kennel back in a dark corner of the fire house. The dim light of one in the morning, the moonlight from the open sky framed through the great window, touched here and there on the brass and copper and the steel of the faintly trembling beast. Light flickered on bits of ruby glass and on sensitive capillary hairs in the nylon-brushed nostrils of the creature that quivered gently, its eight legs spidered under it on rubber padded paws.” – Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
Each fall, Engineering English 2 students read Ray Bradbury’s dystopian classic Fahrenheit 451. As part of this unit, they research, sketch, and design a mechanical hound in the spirit of the novel. Taking the hound from a rough sketch, students then use AutoCAD to create a full design that could, in theory, be 3-D printed. Then, using their specifications, they determine materials and cost, ultimately presenting a sales pitch explaining why their hound fits the criteria set forth in the novel and why the government should select their design for construction. The slideshow below presents a sampling of Engineering English 2 Mechanical Hound work. All computer designs were student-created using AutoCAD Autodesk 360.
timothy j-p ducey 