Engineering Pop-Ups - Activity - www.TeachEngineering.org

On Day 1, start a discussion about pop-up books by asking if anyone has read a pop-up book. Do you know how they work? Take guesses on when they were first invented. (Answer: 500 years ago.)
Information gathering. List on the board all the different design techniques found in the example pop-up books. (Possible techniques: Revolving disks, push/pull tabs, lifts/flaps.) Also note that some books create movement only by the reader moving a disk, tab or flap, while others move simply with the motion of turning a page.
Understand the science. Review with the students how the forces travel from the student's hands along the tabs or through the book pages to cause movement. It may be helpful to draw arrows that represent these forces on the board (see Figure 1).

A drawing of a hand and an arrow pointing towards an image of a lion.

Figure 1. A gentle force with a hand causes movement in a pop-up book.

With the remaining class time, have the student teams write a short story that they will illustrate in their pop-up book. Decide if the book will be a simple children's story created for a child they know, or perhaps a comic book designed for themselves. The story length can be five sentences to five pages. Remind students that some books have no words or very few words; paper engineers design books so the pictures (illustrations and movement) tell the story.
An important part of the engineering design process is creating a diagram of your design. This step helps make the project real so decisions can be made and refined for a better end product. Have the students divide their story into approximately five pages, and draw rough sketches (words and pictures) to lay out each page.
Brainstorming is important in the engineering design process. Working in a team helps everyone come up with creative ideas. Have the students brainstorm unique ways to make their pictures move. Which illustrations will move? In what way? What movement(s) help to tell the story best? Find ideas in the example pop-up books and talk with other students about possible ideas. Brainstorm creative and silly ideas that use the materials available.
Planning ahead is a very important part of the engineering design process. Why? (Answers: It helps with the collection of materials, prevents the wasting of materials, saves time during the construction phase, and keeps projects organized so other people can understand what is going on.) Have the students plan how they will make some of their illustrations move. What will be on the page background? What will be on the flap or tabs? What will be the tab/flap shapes? Where will be the folds? How will the moving pieces be attached? Practice with a prototype (or mock-up), until it works the way you want. Use the suggestions provided in the How to Make Tabs and How to Make Flaps attachments.
On Day 2, continue with the pop-up book making process. After the students have shown they have a good grasp on how they want to complete their project, they can begin the construction phase.
Share the construction tasks among the team members. The first step is to create the base pages of the book. Have each student team figure out how many pieces of paper they need based on the number of finished pages in their book when the 8.5 x 11" paper is folded in half. Plan to include a cover page and a title page. For instance if a story is six pages long, the team needs three pieces of copy paper for the story, one piece for the title page and one piece of colored construction paper for the cover.
Have students stack their book page papers, placing the construction piece on the bottom (see Figure 2).
Next, have students fold the stack of papers in half so that the construction paper is on the outside, creating a front and back cover (see Figure 2).

Sketch of an open-faced book made by a few sheets of paper, with construction paper on the bottom and binding with staples or stitching located vertically in the fold of the pages.

Figure 2. Construction details for the pop-up book.

To make a binding, either staple the fold of the book, or use a needle and thread to stitch the pages together (see Figure 2).
Next, the students may proceed to add the story, illustrations and moving parts to the blank book. Create a title page that includes the components found on the title page of other books (title, author(s), illustrator(s), location, date).
When all students have completed their books, have each team present them to the class. They should be able to describe the type of forces that cause their book parts to move. Discuss the creative ideas used in the pop-up books. Do they function well? Do they have any ideas for improvement? Who is the end user of their book? How did the steps of the engineering design process work for your team? Deliver the pop-up books to younger students and see how they are received.