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Creepy Putty
Mold your learners into materials engineers. Using glue, Borax, and water, scholars create a viscoelastic material. But your class might know it by another name—Silly Putty.
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Design a Flotation Device
Save the soup! Scholars devise a flotation device using straws, balloons, foam, corks, and other objects. A can of soup must stay afloat for at least a minute with this device—your dinner might depend on it!
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Build a Candy Dispenser
Everything in moderation, especially candy. Scholars design and build a dispenser for candy. But, they can't get too carried away—only three or four pieces of candy can come out of the dispenser at one time.
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Build a Big Wheel
Pasta is great for cooking—and for making Ferris wheels. Aspiring engineers use an assortment of pasta types to create a functioning Ferris wheel. They keep track of the design process to refine their designs, if necessary. Let's hope no...
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Build a Plankton Net
Give household materials new life by turning them into a plankton net. Scholars design and build a net to collect and filter plankton from water. They test out their creations by using glitter to represent plankton. The nets need to...
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Design a Folding Solar Panel
Solar energy is an amazing alternative ... but, not always particularly portable! Challenge young scientists to a folding solar panel build-off with an easy-to-execute activity. Scholars brainstorm around specific design needs, construct...
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Pipe Maze
Here's a lesson that is simply a-MAZE-ing! Introduce science scholars to pipeline systems through a hands-on project. Partnered pupils participate in the design, construct, and test a PVC pipeline maze. Reusable materials and clear...
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Windy City Tower
Your class will be blown away when they build their own city tower structure! Engineering scholars partner up to plan, build, and test their own paper towers. As they build, they gain valuable design skills, learn about wind tunnel...
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Build a Cable-Stayed Bridge
Large or small, bridges are architectural wonders! Construct a large-scale cable-stayed bridge during a whole class project. Scholars work in groups to erect the towers, build the roadway, and secure the cables of their very own bridges....
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Design a Dome
Do domed structures have advantages over their less-than-spherical counterparts? Junior architects explore the pros and cons of domes through a design challenge. Teams work together to plan, sketch, build, and test domes created from an...
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Marble Run
It's time to slow your roll! Can your class create a track that allows a marble to roll as slowly as possible? Teams of science scholars collaborate to design, build, and test their tubes while learning about gravity and friction.
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Action Figure Diver
Will your next buoyancy lab rise to the occasion? Make a splash with action figure divers! Teams of young physicists explore the relationship between mass and buoyancy by adding weights or balloons to achieve a diver that neither sinks...
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Designing Highway Interchanges
How do engineers determine the most efficient highway designs? Introduce young scientists to the world of topology, the branch of mathematics that examines how things are connected. Teams use model highways to create the most...
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Build a High Dive
Can't build a cantilever? You'll be able to after a hands-on, constructive activity. Young engineers build cantilevers out of straws and tape. The finished products must be able to hang off a table as far as possible.
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Dream Big Robot Challenge
Think like a human, act like a robot. Scholars program a human robot to travel through an obstacle course. One member of the team then becomes the robot and acts out the code. Hopefully, this human robot will make it through the course!
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Levitating Train
Levitation isn't just for magicians. Pupils design and build a small portion of track for a maglev train using magnets and Lego bricks. The goal is to get the trains to levitate—without using magic!
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Build a Spinning Top
There's no spin needed to describe the usefulness of a dizzying resource! Using paper plates, DVDs, wooden skewers, and pencils, learners work in teams to create spinning tops. The longest-spinning top wins.
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Zip Line Challenge
Harness the awesome power of gravity. Scholars build a zip line to transport a ping-pong ball. The challenge is to get to the finish line in under four seconds. At that speed, individuals better be sure to strap on the harness!
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Hidden Alarm
It's time to wake up! Young engineers build an electric circuit that will activate an alarm. The use of switches in the circuit is a must—because you don't want the alarm to keep beeping forever!
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Safe Landing
Watch out below! Future engineers come up with methods to ensure that a ball in a cup stays in the cup even after dropped from a given height. It might be prudent to include some kind of shock absorber in the cup. Parachutes are a good...
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Heart Valve Replacement
Put your heart into it. Scholars design and build replacements for mitral heart valves. Obviously, they can't test their creations on a real heart, so a box with marbles (to represent blood cells) will suffice.
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Electrical Liquids
Liquid or not, here comes the electricity. Scholars test the conductivity of various substances using a circuit that includes a light bulb. If the light bulb lights up, then the liquid is a conductor. What a bright idea!
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Conveyor Belt
Convey your interest in conveyor belts. By considering different size tubes, groups create a conveyor belt that can transport boxes of candy at least four feet. Also, the conveyor belt must make a 90-degree turn—quite a difficult task!
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Nanosolutions
There are a billion reasons to use the resource! Well, not quite. A demonstration using food color and water shows scholars the meaning of nano. An iterative process results in diluting the concentration of food coloring by one tenth...