Students have been enjoying designing and building a different item each week that they can interact with.  Each item thus far uses a form of propulsion. We’ve used: air blown by mouth (straw-launched planes), compressed air (Stomp Rockets), elasticity (rubber band cars and catapults), lift caused by air pressure imbalances (Flying propellors), and mechanical advantage (trebuchets).

The students are shown how to make one of the toys/items and encouraged to deviate from the original design to see if they can improve it or make it unique somehow.  We’ve all had a lot of fun and it’s great to see students engaging with experiential learning through trying our some of their own ideas.  Moving forward students will be encouraged to design and build their own items or toys from scratch.

Andrew Stokes – Technology and Design technology Specialist.