Today, the workshop students got to do a lot of hands on activities. One of the first activities was taking Lego pieces and building various, simple, structures out of them to see which ones would and would not stand on their own. Dr. Love was trying to demonstrate the concept of center of mass to the students. In order to see this invisible phenomenon, Dr. Love directed the students to a java applet that would allow them to make simple block structures to see where the center of mass was located. Next, the students learned about tension and compression in structures. Since these forces are invisible as well, the students used another java applet.
The students were asked to make simple structures and a competition arose. The structures had to have a specified amount of weight on them and a limited amount of resources could be used to build it. The structure that had the least amount of compression or tension won. The students then put these concepts to use. Using only 100 straws, two cups, and as many pins as they pleased, the students were having a competition to see who could make the tallest structure and hold the most weight. One group of students had a ceremonial opening before beginning to add the weight to their structure. One group of students had the tallest structure, and another group of students had a structure that held the most weight.