The Challenge:
You have 8 pieces of newspaper, a roll of sticky tape and your brain. The goal is to make table supports that must be at least 15cm high and able to support a MDF table top plus a textbook.
First comment about the challenge was "you can't make a table out of paper", in which the reply was 'Yes we can and hence the nature of this challenge is to do so".
Just to prove that some other things have been built out of newspaper the students were asked to match the year with an object or structure made out of paper. One of the building, a house, was originally built in 1922 out of 1" newspaper bricks and is still standing today, the one that really got them and myself was the 2007 paper battery that can power a light bulb!!
From the teaching perspective it was an interesting lesson today in that they forgot to adhere to the Design Process that we have been discussing and using for the last 2 weeks.
After observing the attempts to roll the newspaper sheets into tight cylinders I called a brief halt to remind them that they were operating in groups of 3 or 4 and that they required a plan - i.e. go back to the Design Process and determine the best course of action. The next 15 - 20 minutes were much more productive and we now have some very rough outlines of the structure to be built and an average of 3 newspaper tubes per group, and no Russ & Alex you cannot be 'just boys' and have a sword fight.
The home task is now to reflect on what worked, what didn't and to link the design process with the task more closely and to have a definite structural design and plan. Bring on the next lesson as the challenge is still on ..... I wonder if they feel up to building a bridge out of paper?
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