STRUCTURES
CLASS STRUCTURES
PAPER PILLARS
Kicking off class we began with building a simple set of shapes out of standard white printer paper. We created a circular prism, a rectangular prism, and a triangular prism. We had no direction on how to make these just do what we want to create the free standing prism shapes with the paper and a piece of tape. My partner and I chose to do all 3 of our shapes with the width being the height so it was not as tall as the paper was long. I am not truly sure why in that moment we decided to do that, however in hindsight I am glad we did. We then tested the strength of our shapes by placing a book on top of each one and seeing if they would support the weight or crumble. For the most part all of the shapes crumbled with the exception of the circular structure.
When we were making the structures I noticed that the shorter, and thicker the paper the better the support is for holding the books! I was actually playing with paper while we were discussing our group findings when I combined two triangular pillars and was able to stack multiple books becuase the strength had increased.
OVERALL FINDINGS
Structures are more durable and seem to be stronger when they are circular, shorter, Widder base, and thick composition or walls.
CANDY CREATIONS
Gum Drops and Toothpicks, seems simple right? Not quite the easiest challenge I have been given. My partner and I were given about 15 or so minutes to create the best structure to support the MOST books (same books as pictured above). We took our findings from the first challenge and tried to agree that short and thick walls was the way to go, however we were really struggling with keeping our gum drops and toothpick structure together- once you start poking holes the cndy begins to loose its strength and its hard to change your mind with how you want your structure. All in all we managed to make this little geometric house that you see on the right and it was only able to support one book (but who's counting?) We felt proud that we completed the challenge and were able to support eve one book! I really like how we had to work as a team in a timed fashion to preform in this competition- it was encouraging and frustrating all at the same time! I could definitely imagine using this in my future classroom.
OVERALL FINDINGS
Its best to have a game plan and not poke too many holes in each gum drop. However we found that geometric shapes such as triangles seem to work really well in providing structure and support!
TOO TALL TOWER
For this challenge we were given the goal of making the highest tower in the class, we were only allowed to use one copy of the Appalachian and about 2 feet of tape and our partners! WHOA, what a challenge! As we planned we had a lot of ideas and not a lot of time so we began constructing and just going with it- hoping for the best. We ended up having a pretty tall tower but it was not the tallest, however we did learn a lot about how we could have made improvements. We didnt have much of a strategy we were just rolling and sticking our newspaper straight up.
OVERALL FINDINGS
Things that seemed to work really well were having a wide base and getting more narrow as it got taller. Another thing that was working well was thickness and good support at the bottom for the weight at the top!
INDIVIDUAL STRUCTURES
CUPS ON CARDS
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BUOYANCY BOATS
This structure challenge was a fun and straight foward assignment that can be done with early elementary students. It is all using at home materials- the directions call for small red cup (I had these white ones) and cut squares of papaer (I used index cards for the purpose of recycling.) The goal is to create a tall tower of the Cat in the Hats actual hat- That is why it calls for red cups (if using this in a classroom I would use red cups!) So the mission is clear stack as many cups using index cards in-between as possible- I began- I started and seemed to loose all my cups at 6 until I finally on the 4th try made it to 10 cups all stacked up! I was very proud of what I had done, and I truly had enjoyed trying to achieve this- so much that I continued to try to beat my 10 cups, however after 3 more tries that did not happen. In the photographs above you will see my towers, my fiancés trial tower, as well as another version of a tower I built for fun just to see how different bases hace a diffrent impact on the tower as a whole. If you would like more information on this structure challenge check out this website!
OVERALL FINDINGS
Overall it is challenging to build a structure using cups and paper- specifically when it is only one on top of another. However it is possible to do, and is a lot easier when the fan is off and it begins on a flat, stable surface.
Also towers are more stable when the bottom is allowed to be stronger than just one cup- the wider the base the more support!
For this stucture challenge I thought a bit more off the path of land and went to water! I found a design for tin foil boats to test there durability. For this challenge I roped in the help of my Fiancé Dom. We are both very competitive so it was exciting to see what was going to happen as we tried to take on this challenge. For our materials we used the standard box of foil and then tore sheets that were 1 foot long. That is what we made our boats out of. Dom and I both made them in seperate rooms with a timer set to 2 minutes- so we couldn't be too elaborate. Once we were done we took turns counting the amount of pennies our boats could float in our half way full bathtub. My boat held 143 pennies- I was very proud of what I had created and didnt think his stood a chance against my boat! Oncethe SS Bri sank Dom began to count out and place pennies in his boat his help 533 pennies before it capsized. Neddeless to say the SS Dom won this battle of the foil buoyancy boats. Overall I think this would be an awesome demonstration or experiment for my classroom one day because it is very exciting and a great experience for trial and error learning. It is also inexpensive, because the only materials needed is tin foil, water, somewhere to test the boats, and pennies (or other objects to be equally weighted). If you want more information check out the website I got my idea from!
MATERIALS
SS DOM
S.S.BRI
OVERALL FINDINGS
When building these boats I learned a lot about buoyancy and what makes something good structure for water. It is really important to spread the weight of the load out evenly and make sure that it has a nice flat surface on the bottom to help keep it a float. All in all foil boats can only hold so much weight, but over 5 dollars in pennies is a lot for a foot of foil!
Real Life Pillar
Why this is important?
Looking around you see pillars everywhere! They support whole buildings! They are so important, and it is so important to be built correctly! if you notice they are very dense and thick so they are capable of holding a lot of weight because of their own structure!
