WAMS Students Participate in Engineering Challenges

Sixth grade science students from William Annin Middle School participated in various engineering challenges as part of unit project on forces and motion. Each group had to utilize both their scientific knowledge and design & problem solving skills to successfully build a solution to each challenge. Some of the challenges that the students participated in included:

· Solar Powered Car – Objective: Create a car that can travel a distance of 100 meters by only utilizing the energy from the sun. Students learned about gear ratios and utilized their knowledge of Newton’s 2nd Law of motion to design a car with maximum acceleration.

· Water Rocket – Objective: Design and build a rocket from recycled materials that uses H2O as fuel. Students used Newton’s 3rd Law of Motion to launch a rocket that obtains maximum altitude by taking into account pressure, air resistance, gravity, and aerodynamics.

· Rube Goldberg machine – Objective: Create a working Rube Goldberg machine using common household items found at home. Students utilized Newton’s Laws of Motion to create various interactions between these materials.

· Egg Drop – Objective: Construct a parachute that can safely drop an egg (named Egguardo) from a height of 5 meters. Students had to create a design to maximize air resistance and minimize acceleration due to gravity.

· Boat Float – Objective: Build a ship that can transport the maximum amount of cargo from one end of a pool to the other. Students had to design a ship that maximizes buoyant force, while devising a method of propelling the boat across the body of water.

Upon the conclusion of the project, a “design champion” was crowned for each of the challenges. Finalists from the Solar Car Challenge will be competing to qualify for the Junior Solar Sprint state championship later this spring.

Image 1: Design Champions for Egg Drop. Pictured (left to right): Jasmine Gill, Daniel Chouequet, Erin Everson, Annie Ross (not pictured)

Image 2: Design Champions for Boat Float. Pictured (left to right): Jessica Baker, Grace Murray, Amanda Mertz, Kayla Capato.

Image 3: Mr. Hartman preparing to launch a rocket made by student Barnaby White.