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Greetings from Ben Kessler and Eric Fournier, 

The first two weeks of the semester, our second at Columbus After school have gone as well as can be hoped for. Our goal for these first two classes was to use two single week non-lego activities in order to gauge the engineering skill level of our students (they range from 3rd-5th grade). The first week we came in expecting a relatively rowdy bunch as that was what we experienced first semester. However, this was not the case and we were able to quickly get into our project, paper tower. We set design constraints based both materials (3 pieces of paper, limited tape, etc.) and tower minimum height. Overall, the kids successfully completed this activity with all but one group able to reach and stand at the minimum height of 4 feet. The second activity, egg drop, went nearly as well. We prefaced the activity with an introduction to the engineering design process, and the effects of this definitely showed up in the approach students took. The activity was taken from the STOMP website under the name "Egg Helmet," but we left the specifications on how the egg was to be dropped a little bit ambiguous and so some students designed an egg encompassing structure while others created more of a basket to drop the egg into. This was definitely an issue as the materials weren't really suited for the basket approach. In the end, no one was able to save an egg, but the students clearly enjoyed the activity and the challenge it presented and we look forward to beginning our exploration into NXT building after our break this Monday.

Cheers,

Ben & Eric