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Week 2 - Sturdy Structures (10/23) |
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The kids were excited for us to come back for week 2 (although, Eric they did miss you!). This week we introduced our overall theme for the semester of transportation and discussed the different methods of transportation and the engineering design needed for the different types of transportation. We reviewed the engineering design process again with them at the beginning of class and kept reiterating the steps in the process throughout their building challenge. Our focus for the week was the construction of sturdy structures, since any type of transportation cannot move without a self supported structure. This also allowed them to explore how to build with the legos. The challenge was to build a sturdy structure that could hold a book. When we arrived we found out that the room with all the kits was locked, but Ronnie managed to find a few lego boxes and the kids were really good about just using the limited materials they had. It was good to give them a more simple challenge for their first time with the legos because some of the kids really had trouble visualizing the 3-D structure needed to support a book, and some had difficulty connecting the lego pieces together. When testing the structures we asked them how they built the structure, why they built it that way, and how it will support the book. The kids were all really thorough in their descriptions of how they built the structures and all the structures were successful in supporting a large textbook. Overall it was a great week! We just need to make sure that the NXT lego kits will be available for our activity next week.
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