5th Grade Engineering Challenge: Build a Bird's Nest
The challenge: Construct a bird's nest using only the following materials:Round toothpicks
~½” – ¾” strips of paper, cloth and/or thin plastic
Up to 10 paper clips
You should not use any glue or tape
Test your nest. Can it hold:
A marble or ball bearing?
A golf ball or bouncy ball or something similar?
A hard-boiled egg?
A raw egg?
Finally, if you have been able to do all these things, find a V-shaped tree branch. Attach your nest to the branch and retest the nest, holding only the end of the branch.
Those of you having difficulty with this assignment, don't get discouraged. Sometimes even birds have difficulty.
Ruth sent in this photo of an unfortunate robin's egg:
Actually, it's more likely that the hatchling inside this egg was already dead and the parent bird deliberately pushed it out of the nest to protect the other chicks. It's still sad, though.
Thank you for the photo, Ruth.
Daphne has built a nest. Here is a photo of it holding an egg:
The egg looks pretty safe to me. Nice job, Daphne!
Gilly sent in these photos of her bird's nest:
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It looks like an interesting design, but will it hold anything?
SUCCESS! Nice work, Gilly. Looks like your nest is really strong and very comfortable.
Lee has come up with a really clever design:
 Here is Lee's nest. It looks like she used a lot of paper strips. Notice the crane origami? |
 And here she is testing her design. Success! |
Congratulations, Lee. You came up with a successful design and constructed a nest that met all the requirements. Nice work.
Alana made this nest. I think this is a very clever design.
 Here's a view looking down into Alana's nest. |
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 A side view of the same nest. |
 This nest is strong enough to easily hold a bouncy ball. |
Have you come up with a successful design? Send a photo to gsimonelli@leffellschool.org and I will add it to this gallery.
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