I has been a big week for design technology this week.
Year five beginning building for their wooden toys by measuring, sawing, and nailing pieces of wood together to for a 20x15x10cm frame. Some of these activities are first experiences for many of the children and they acted sensibly, worked together as a team and persevered when tasks were tough.
Year 3 looked into the terms, ‘transparency’ and ‘sturdiness’ this week. They used nets of different 3d shapes to practice creating miniature paper greenhouses, that helped them consider which shapes could prove best for sturdiness, as well as let the most light inside. They discovered that to more light was able to enter the greenhouses, the less sturdy they were. They went on to explore and consider some materials that could be added that could help to raise the sturdiness of their shapes while maintaining the same amount of transparency.
Year 6 investigated different cross sections of beams that could be used as a deck for bridges, realising that some cross sections actually supported more weight then others. They also began to build trusses as part of an investigation into how they can aid in dispersing forces acting on the centre of bridges across the whole length. For more information on this, check out… https://www.brighthubengineering.com/structural-engineering/65884-construction-of-beam-and-truss-bridges/#beam-vs-truss-bridges
