WMA in the Classroom Adventures with STEM Projects in the Second and Third Trimesters
Grade One... Whirligigs and Build your own Dinosaur
Build a Whirligig Objective: Students were asked to build their own whirligigs, which are objects that spin or whirl. Engineering Challenge: Grade one students were given the task to work with one or two partners to design and build a whirligig. How they did it: Students brainstormed ideas and drew preliminary sketches of their thoughts and ideas in their journals. With the help of Mr. Borton, they chose the design, the number of blades they wanted and set to making the whirligig. The designs were tested on height and time suspended in the air.
Build Your Own Dinosaur Objective: Students were asked to build LEGO速 dinosaurs, using specific instructions. Engineering Challenge: Grade one students were given a set of LEGOS速 and a set of three cards containing physical characteristics. They were asked to construct their designs based on the characteristic cards they were given. How they did it: Students followed the specifications on the cards and were able to build their dinosaurs accordingly.
Grade Two... Make a Wind Racer LEGO We Do Monkeys
Make a wind racer! Engineering Challenge: Students worked with their partners to design and build a balloon-powered racer with the materials provided. However, the race car plans did not come with instructions. The students worked in teams to design their cars. Then they assembled them and raced to find out who’s was the fastest in the grade.
Intro to WeDo Drumming Monkey Students were introduced to the LEGOÂŽ WeDo kits, which attach working motors and sensors to the laptops and allow students to create simple to complex programs for their bots. In their introduction, they made a working model with a motor that turned a fan forward and backward. Engineering Challenge: Students followed a WeDo-structured build to build a monkey that drummed on a cup in different rhythmic patterns. They used the motor, gear assembly, cam shaft and added motion sensors.
Grade Three... Make an LED Greeting Card and Robot Critter
Electricity—Simple Circuits Make an LED Greeting Card Students designed a greeting card and made it light up with circuit writer pens. They laid out a simple circuit to illuminate their cards. They also drew their circuits using the conductive ink and were able to run the LED lights in parallel to add light to their greeting card designs.
Robot Critter Students built a LEGO® WeDo creature, either an alligator, bird or lion. After completing this build and programming their creatures to demonstrate movement, students picked a random habitat for these creatures in which to live and made adaptations for the creatures to thrive. Adaptions were made to both the LEGO® creature and the computer program.
Grade Four‌ Build an Adaptive Kicker and Rube Goldberg Apparatus
Build a Adaptive Kicker Human Body Robot Build Engineering Challenge: Students worked in teams to build a LEGO® kicker to attach to a wheelchair which would enable a person with a disability to play soccer. Students used the LEGO® WeDo kits to build a kicker that was either programmed to start on a “go” command or was set up with a motion sensor. The kickers were tested for both distance and accuracy.
Simple Machines Robotics/Rube Goldberg Apparatus Engineering Challenge: Students worked in groups to design, build and implement a Rube Goldberg apparatus that incorporated three simple machines using found objects, Kinects and the LEGO® WeDo robotics kits. Students worked in groups of five with specific roles assigned to them to accomplish these tasks. Named after cartoonist and inventor Rube Goldberg, the apparatus is overly elaborate and performs a rudimentary task via a chain reaction.
Grade Five... Build a LEGO速 Bot and a Create Water Filtration System
LEGO速 Robotics Build Students were introduced to the LEGO速 NXT kits. They worked in teams of three to build the education bot. After building the basic bot and learning how to program it to move, they added both light and audio sensors to accomplish basic robot challenges.
Environmental Engineering: Water Filtration Challenge Students were grouped in teams of three to design an effective water filtration system using commonly found household items. They were given various materials to test before designing the filter. After they designed and built the filter, they were provided with a bottle of mystery water to filtrate. They were judged on economics of their designs, speed of filtration and clarity in the water.
Grade Six... Build a Toothpick Bridge and Launch Bottle Rockets
Bridge Building Engineering Challenge: Students worked in teams to design and build a bridge from toothpicks, following protocol for specific bridge type and an assigned budget. Each student on the team played a different role in the build and was responsible for his or her area of expertise. Bridges were judged on the amount they cost and the amount of weight that was suspended from them until they broke.
Bottle Rockets Engineering Challenge: Students worked individually to research, design and build a bottle rocket powered by air pressure and water, producing maximum flight height conditions. The rockets were constructed from two-liter plastic bottles and were judged on the altitude they achieve.
Grade Seven... Build Hand Pollinators and a Better Bone
Cell Structure and Function Build a Hand Pollinators: EIE Engineering Challenge: Students built the best hand pollinator to help save several different shaped plants. Students worked in teams of three to test commonly found materials to see which collect and deposit pollen the most effectively. Then, they designed and tested their pollinators to work with four extremely different shaped flowers and plants.
Build a Better Bone Engineering Challenge: Students worked in teams to build and design the strongest bone. Using a very limited amount of card stock and tape, students designed a bone by rolling and folding the paper. The bones were tested by adding weight until they broke.
Grade Eight... Build a VoiceControlled Catapult and a Pie Plate Speaker
Newton’s Laws of Motion LEGOŽ Voice Controlled Catapult Engineering Challenge: Students built a LEGOŽ counterweight catapult and adjusted the design for the furthest toss. The catapults were controlled using the audio sensor and were voice controlled to launch.
Build a speaker with a pie plate. Students built a working speaker with a coil of copper wire, a magnet and pie plate. The students learned how to make a voice coil and attached it to an amplifier. Students then played their own music selections and added different shaped aluminum plates to the coil to see which made the best quality sound.