velocity: A vector quantity whose magnitude is an object's speed and whose direction is in the object's direction of motion. Velocity is different from speed because velocity describes a direction as well. When everyone reaches zero, the person leading the activity should drop the egg from at least two metres high. EDP Step 1: Ask to Identify the Needs and Constraints. Inform students that engineers solve problems by first identifying the design requirements and constraints. For this design challenge, the requirements and constraints are: Do you know what natural disasters are? Have you ever experienced one? (Listen to student responses). Natural disasters are natural events like floods, earthquakes, and hurricanes that cause significant damage and sometimes even loss of life. These natural disasters can make basic human needs like food, water, and shelter inaccessible due to compromised infrastructure.

Weight Constraint: Introduce the maximum weight constraint for the entire contraption. This requires students to think about the trade-off between protection and weight. EDP Step 3: Imagine Possible Solutions. Direct students to brainstorm in their teams and then design their devices by making drawings along with short paragraphs that describe what they want to do and why. This is what engineers do. Doing this also encourages students to communicate their ideas to others, which is important when they work in groups, and helps them to analyze their ideas for merit.If you're looking for even more STEM resources like this to engage your little learners, give our Santander and Scuderia Ferrari collection a try! Each activity has been created in collaboration with Ferrari to bring the excitement of F1 to your classroom. More resources to celebrate Engineers Week: Strong Spaghetti– Get out the pasta and test our your spaghetti bridge designs. Which one will hold the most weight?

They then took their contraptions outside to test them out. My husband climbed onto the school roof with all the egg containers and dropped them one at at time. Since this is the highest we’ve done the egg drop challenge compared to years past, there were quite a few broken eggs this time! EDP Step 5: Create a Prototype. Have students work together to create the design they decided on with the materials they have available. An Egg Drop Challenge PowerPoint presentation - This can be used to guide and structure the activity. It explains to children what they need to do and encourages them to think about the strengths and weaknesses of the different materials they could use. vector: A quantity that has both magnitude and direction. Example vector quantities include velocity, weight and force. Alternatively, speed and mass are NOT vector quantities and can be represented by their magnitudes.Make sure you have some spare eggs, in case any of the teams break theirs while trying to protect it. Give each student team the same amount of materials to build their devices. Suggested supplies are listed below, but feel free to be creative in what materials you make available. Scissors are the only tool they need. Understanding how structures are used to protect products is an important part of the new GCSE courses in Design and Technology and Engineering. Structures are used to protect many products, ranging from eggs to supplies dropped from aircraft during emergencies. Straw Boats Challenge– Design a boat made from nothing but straws and tape, and see how many items it can hold before it sinks. Parachute Design: Challenge students to design a parachute system that slows down the egg’s descent. This adds an aerodynamics element to the project.

natural disaster: a natural event such as a flood, earthquake, or hurricane that causes great damage or loss of life.A good STEM project will have a little of at least 2 of the 4 pillars of STEM and often you will find a solid experiment or challenge naturally uses bits and pieces of most of the pillars. As you can see these 4 areas are very intertwined. mass: A measure of how much matter an object contains, or the total number of particles in an object. Mass is not weight. Weight is the force caused on a mass by gravity. Thus, a person's mass would not change on different planets, but their weight would. For instance, you would weigh about 1/6th of your body weight now if you were on the moon. They recorded their predictions on which contraptions would work using our free printable egg drop challenge recording sheet. We learned that there is no best way to protect an egg. There are multiple ways to do the egg drop successfully. What egg drop design ideas will you come up with? First, what is STEM? STEM is an acronym for science, technology, engineering, and math. It’s the new word on the street because of our tech-rich society and the lean towards the sciences and getting kids engaged early.

Although this activity is most popular in high school physics classes, we’ve adapted it for elementary aged children and have done it with my husband’s 4th grade class for years in a row. (You can even do it with preschool aged children!) Have each group discuss how they could alter and improve their prototype to work in the aftermath of a natural disaster. Design "something" that will protect your egg, which represents fragile relief supplies, so it survives the air drops.

Materials Investigation: Have students investigate the properties of different materials. Ask them to design a container for the egg using various materials like paper, cardboard, plastic, and foam. Then, compare which material offers the best protection. printability - how easy is it to replicate your design with 3D printing? Efficient use of material, minimal post-processing (removing supports) and assembly time are all counted towards the final score. Remember, all of the enclosure must be 3D printable, and you can not use parts that are not 3D printed in your design. Brainstorming is a group problem-solving design process in which each person in the group presents his or her ideas in an open forum. Activity Sheet - Children can use this to help guide their design choices. It includes a handy space where they can draw out their design before attempting to make it. It even has plenty of prompt questions to help them improve their design.