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Engineering Towers | Elementary School Educator Curriculum
El Pueblo: The Watts Towers
Build a tower through the lens of different careers.
Work with other students in groups to formulate a sound approach to building a tower. Students will use various lenses to tackle design challenges as they arise. The key to success is always a matter of collaboration and communication to meet the design challenge.
OBJECTIVE: Learners will be able to work together through different “lenses” to build a tower.
ESSENTIAL QUESTION:
How and why would understanding your materials help you build a better tower?
PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
As an inquiry into the properties of different solid matter you and your team will work together to create a tower out of “trash.” After your tower is built, you and your team will present your work along with the commentary about what you learned as a team member, an artist, a scientist, and an engineer. As a culminating activity, all the towers will be arranged together to create a “pueblo” or “town” that represents your community.
You will need to work together collaboratively to
- Create a design of your tower
- Consider the structural integrity of your tower (how strong and stable it is)
- Consider the aesthetic impact (how it looks and how people respond to it)
- Plan the construction of your tower
- Build and test your tower to ensure that it can withstand an earthquake test
- Create and give a presentation about your work and learning process
- Reflect on your understanding of solid materials throughout this process
You will be evaluated on
- How you collaborate with your team
- The detail and completeness of your design
- Your project plan
- Your explanation of how and why you included certain elements in your design
- Your interactive notebook responses
- Your final presentation
INSTRUCTIONS:
- Share with students the task – building a tower.
- Work with their group on generating questions they have about the project.
- Have them reflect on the communication process and the importance of asking clarifying questions.
CONSTRUCTION
Criteria and Constraint
- Structure
- Reach a minimum height of 3 Feet
- *Must fit a 1ft by 1ft platform
- *Must be able to be transported across the room
- Can have little or no visible evidence of stress after an earthquake test (torsion, shear, compression, bulge)
- Must be the structure depicted in written/drawn plan
- Materials variety of materials
- *Materials are chosen based on their properties
- Must be made of T4T materials or found materials
- Connections
- Uses at least 2 connection types
- *Cannot use tape or glue
DESIGN
Criteria and Constraints
- Plan
- Must have an idea or feeling to be expressed
- Must create a design that expresses the focus idea or message
- Includes ideas or elements from all team members
- Considers the aesthetics and color of material type
- Considers how materials function and interact
- Drawing
- Must include all the component parts
- Must depict and label materials used
- Must depict how pieces will be connected
- Shows more than one perspective
- Has close ups of details
- Must include a rational for decisions
- Revision
- Every change is depicted in the plan
- Changes are documented in different colors
- If necessary revisions are documented on new paper or overlaid with post-it/taped papers
- *cannot erase
