Today, in the morning workshop, the students had a quick lesson on building a strong structure using the right shapes that can strengthen the model, like triangles and not squares. They had a little contest using teamwork and cooperation between partners to build a powerful model strong enough to hold a foam cup and as many marbles as they can. There is a need to calculate ways to strengthen the structure and their ultimate goal is to get the highest product of the models height times the greatest number of marbles the model can hold. The materials they used are straws and pipe cleaners. Tools are scissors to
cut the materials to make desired sizes for building, and paper along with a pencil if they would like to plan out their model. They also need their extreme creativity in order to assemble to best model they can.
After every partner finished building his or her model, testing began. They noticed how the most successful models were the ones made with more triangles and had more support. As more marbles were placed into the cup, the straws would bend. It was also up to the engineers to decide when they would like to stop adding marbles into the cup. Most engineers stopped before the model could reach its limit just to be on the safe side. In conclusion, students were able to work together, getting to know new people as they created a model for a contest and to build their knowledge on what is best for a model.