Epro 8 Challenge

Kia ora bloggers this week for Epro 8 the Year 6’s and I did this challenge, the challenge is called stem bridges. We had to build bridges that were strong enough to hold a toy car and strong enough to stay in one place & not move around everywhere. We watched these two videos about bridges, how they work and were built. Why I think we did this was to learn to communicate with our group and work together as one, mahi tahi. There were three types of bridges to choose from,  which were all different designs. The three bridges were called truss bridge, suspension bridge and cable stayed bridge. My group was Anika, Shivam and Mikaira. The things we had to use to make a bridge was popsicle sticks, popsicle sticks with four evenly spread out holes, string and cardboard. We choose a bridge to build and it was the cable stayed bridge. The first thing we did was we made the bridge. While we were building the bridge it started to look more like a truss bridge so we decided to make a truss bridge instead.  When we finished making the bridge we tried to make the road by using the popsicle sticks with holes in it and string so we could tie the sticks together.  By the time we finished making our second popsicle stick road it was time to tidy up. When we were tidying up I saw two girls in my class put the cardboard back to where it goes and remembered that we could of used cardboard for our road instead of using popsicle sticks.  I told my group and we were annoyed because we tried about three different ideas to make the road when we could have just used cardboard.  What I think I did well was working with my group and making sure they are helping out and working with each other. What I could have done better is spent more time on trying to get the structure of the bridge instead of sorting the popsicle sticks into their color (color coordinating). What I learnt was that sometimes your plan doesn’t always work out to your original plan.  Do you also wanna know something “teamwork makes the dreamwork” said the author.  

Have you done a challenge like this before?

A Challenging EPro8 Challenge!

In Te Ngahere on Tuesday when the year 7 & 8’s went to technology. While the year six’s were at school we did an EPro8 Challenge. The first challenge we were trying to do was Castle Siege. We had to build a protection system for the king because he was under attack. My group is Te Hauata and Manaaki. We used Bamboo sticks, rubber bands, paper, tape and a ping pong ball to build the catapult. When we were doing the EPro8 challenge we learnt about two types of energy, they were called Potential energy and Kinetic energy. We learnt that Potential energy is were all the energy stores up in the ball and the Kinetic energy moves and pushes all the energy that the potential energy stored. For example: when you are playing bowling and you use potential energy when you are storing all the energy and then you use Kinetic energy it pushes the bowling ball. Also the bowling ball is really stiff but when you use Potential energy and store all the energy then you use Kinetic energy the bowling ball will move and roll. The Kinetic energy worked really well because the Potential energy stores all the energy for the Kinetic energy so that the ball can roll. When we were testing our catapult we didn’t finish it in time to be checked by the judge(Whaea Becks). What my group and I found challenging was when we were trying all of our ideas but it still keeps on breaking or not working we got really upset and we were in the pit. Then when Gina came along and talked to us. Then Gina starting talking to us we kept on building and coming up with ideas and then we got somewhere. This made us very happy. What I thought my group and I did well was that we had a lot of ideas that we all came up with and we worked as a team. Next time we do work in a group I will try and work faster with my group and keep on talking to come up with more ideas.

Did you already know what Potential and Kinetic Energy is?

Melting Ice - Blocks

On the 25 of September  we did an experiment about trying not to let your ice blocks melt in the sun for 1 in a half hour.My group was Charlize & Poet. Our plan was to get some material, cardboard, polystyrene foam, cardboard holder, ruler, lunch bags, juicies and sellotape. When our juicies were in the sun for 1 and a ½ hours it started to melt.That's maybe why it was cold in our creation. I think our creation didn’t work because we put too many layers on.