Student Engineering Projects


Max, Ian and Olivia built grabbers recently. Here is what they wrote about them: "Each kid independently designed a different grabbing mechanism.  Olivia wanted to collect items so she used a yogurt cup and cream cheese lid to push bouncy balls into her cup.  Ian went with grabbing by force and Max used toothpicks to spear his targets."
Grabbers
Looks like all three of them work very well. What a great project!


Check out this Video of Micah testing his balloon rocket. Zoom!

Ethan build this structure using just toothpicks and raisins. Notice how he used triangles to make his structure rigid:
Ethan
Ethan said that his tower is about 10" tall. Great design, Ethan.

Here's Noah with his toothpick-and-raisins structure.
Noah
Notice the unusual base? What a creative design. And tall, too! Nice work, Noah.

Emily built these two structures using only toothpicks and raisins.
Emily
When finished, the one on the right stood over 12" tall. Way to go, Emily!

Caleb built a catapult and projectile catcher for the Catapult Challenge. You can watch him test it in this Video.

Here is Aviva with her aluminum foil boat:
Aviva     Aviva2
Her boat held over 100 coins--along with well over 100 paper clips--without sinking. Amazing! Great design, Aviva.

Harris built a working zip line in his yard. What an outstanding piece of engineering. You can see the Video of it on YubeTube. 
Including the antenna (not pictured here) Emma's toothpick tower stood at 12"
Emma1     Emma2

What an outstanding piece of engineering.
Nice work, Emma. I really like that base. It looks very sturdy.

Mena used grapes for her toothpick tower:
Mena
She says that she got it as high as 14". That's a record!

Here's Avery toothpick tower, a whopping 10 1/4".
Avery
Nice work, Avery. You've set the bar very high for the rest of us.

Daphne sent in some photos of her Cotton Ball Launcher, complete with smiley-face pencil:
Daphne1
It works! You can see the cotton ball as a white blur in the middle of the photo below:
Daphne2
I'm guessing it's the smiley faces on the pencil that makes this cotton ball launcher so effective. Nice work, Daphne.

Belle and Emily shared the targets that they made for the Paper Rocket Design lab. One of them even has its own rocket holder.
targets
Both look pretty challenging. I definitely want to see Mr. Coronavirus get nailed with those rockets!

Here is a Video of Shai testing his paper rocket.
Alana sent in this photo of her Cotton Ball Launcher.
Alana1
And here it is in action.
Alana2
Do you see that while blur in the middle of the photo? That's the cotton ball in mid flight!
Thank you for sending us these great pictures, Alana.

Maya sent this Video of a paper roller coaster that she made. Success!

Jake sent a Video of his showbox maze. Ten seconds! Great job, Jake!

Here is a Video of a model Roller Coaster that Belle made.
Eliana has posted a Video on YouTube. She shows her marble maze at the beginning of the video. Looks like she's making good progress.


Have you done any home engineering projects that you would like to share with your friends and classmates?

Send your photos and a desciption of what you did to gsimonelli@leffellschool.org and I will publish them on this web page.

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Last Updated: November 11, 2020
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