Watercraft Design Challenge

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The Watercraft Design Challenge

Students were given the following challenge; build a boat with limited materials (see below) that is able to float for at least 10 seconds while carrying 8 heavy washers.  The boat is floated empty, and then the washers are added one at a time.

The materials they were allowed to use were:

• two 8oz paper cups
• 10 skinny straws
• a 25cm long piece of Saran Wrap
• duct tape

Before building their boats, we discussed the design process:

 
A key part of the process is it is iterative -- after you test your design you evaluate it and then tweak it, coming up with an improved design.

The students did an amazing job and the variety of boat designs was truly wonderful!  As they tested their designs they had to deal with making their boats more stable or more waterproof.  The best part of the challenge was that once each student or pair of students came up with a successful design, they were willing to do more: either make it capable of carrying more washers, or trying a different design or challenging themselves to make a boat with less materials.

Check out the slides below (link) to see the students in action:



This design challenge came from the PBS Kids Design Squad Activity Guide.

Thanks for checking in to see what we've been up to!

Challenges, Trips, & Projects Wrapping Up

Here are  a few of the things that we did... This Week In Gifted!

Field Trip Prep

On Monday, May 8th, the grade 3s, 4s and 5s will be coming together for our year end field trip.  Detailed information about the trip can be found in last week's post.  Thank you to everyone for returning the signed permission forms on time.  Also a big thank you to the parents and grandparents who have volunteered to chaperone on the trip!  As mentioned in the field trip information sent home, we will be meeting at Wiltse Elementary School bus zone (adjacent to the playground) at 8:45am and that is where pick up at will be at 2:30pm.  It promises to be an exciting day!

Final Schedule

Gifted Program Classes are winding down.  Here is the schedule for the rest of May:
- May 8th -- Field Trip
- May 9 - 11th -- classes cancelled (due to trip earlier in the week)
- May 16 - 18th -- Last Gifted Program Classes of the year
- End of May / beginning of June -- Year end Parent Meetings

Watercraft Challenge

It was a small class on Wednesday morning as many of the grade 5s were at the KVR orientation.  Did we mope--no we did not!  We did a design challenge.  The goal--build a watercraft that is capable of carrying 8 big metal washers without sinking using only duct tape, two 9oz paper cups, 10 straws and 20cm of plastic wrap.  A couple of students in the afternoon class, who had finished their projects, also took up the challenge.

Take a look below at the different crafts they created.  Four watercraft, four very different designs!  Maximum washers carried without sinking?  Katie aka "the Duct Tape Queen" built a craft that carried 36 washers without sinking, and almost carried 44!  Gerry's craft was able to transport 42 without sinking--amazing!  All of the students who took on the challenge did a great job designing and refining their watercraft.  Check out their work below (link).

Projects Wrapping Up

The Tuesday afternoon class all completed and presented their projects this week.  Oscar created an animated interview with Frank Lloyd Wright, programmed in Scratch.  Rhett made a 3D model and drawings of a small home on wheels.  Ezra shared his design for a castle as well some inspiring castles from around the world in a slideshow presentation.  Iain created an animation in Scratch sharing information he learned while researching the CN Tower.  More projects will be shared in the other classes on our last day.    

December 1st to 4th

Here are a few of the things that we did... This Week In Gifted!

Watercraft Building Challenge

The Summerland ASPIRE class were challenged to build a watercraft out of the following materials:

• duct tape
• paper cups
• 25 cm strip of plastic wrap
• 10 straws
• paper towels
• 15 steel washers (1" diameter)

The watercraft had to hold 15 steel washers and stay afloat for a minimum of 10 seconds.  Before building their watercraft we discussed buoyancy and the different types of designs we see in various watercraft.  Niamh and Benjamin quickly built a minimalist watercraft that did the job; sometimes the simplest designs work best!  See the slideshow below for the other student designs (link).

Balloon Rockets

The Summerland AIM group built balloon rockets.  They used balloons which they inflated and taped to straws.  The straws were threaded onto monofilament (fishing line).  They started out racing the balloons two at a time on two monofilament lines running horizontally and parallel to each other.  The group discovered that using a shorter straw (half the original length) worked best and that the size of the balloon didn't matter as much as the air pressure in the balloon; a fully inflated small balloon went faster than a larger balloon that was only partially inflated.  After the horizontal races we tied some monofilament line to a ceiling hook and tried launching the balloons vertically and on the diagonal.  You can check out the results below (link).

Improv Bingo and Funny Faces

The Penticton grade 1 - 3 group played the drama game Funny Faces.  It is very similar to charades and requires students to act out scenarios while the rest of the class tries to guess what they are / what they are doing.  The students did a wonderful job acting.  I look forward to seeing how they do with more challenging drama games.

The Penticton grade 5 group played a different drama game; Improv Bingo.  A character, place, goal, obstacle and object are chosen at random and small groups of students create skits incorporating all of these.  One of the challenges in this activity is working together with others to agree upon a skit.  This group excels at collaborating and as a result they can quickly come up with and act out creative scenarios.

Research Projects

All of the groups have been researching topics related to our theme X Marks The Spot; The Search For Treasure.  The grade 1- 3 groups continued to work on their World of Treasures Slideshows, the Summerland ASPIRE students shared what they had discovered during their research, and the Penticton grade 4s and 5s continued researching with some students starting to work on their presentations.

First Term Wraps Up

This week was our last week of classes for the winter term.  There are no classes for December 8 - 19th.  Classes will resume the week of January 12th.  I wish students and families well--have a great last two weeks of school and a wonderful holiday!