History and Testing Shapes of Strength for Buildings
Students are introduced to brainstorming and the design process in problem solving as it relates to engineering. They perform an activity to develop and understand problem solving with an emphasis on learning from history. Using only paper, straws, tape and paper clips, they create structures that can support the weight of at least one textbook. In their first attempts to build the structures, they build whatever comes to mind. For the second trial, they examine examples of successful buildings from history and try again.
Students explore the various shapes and their strengthsCopyright 2004 Microsoft Corporation, One Microsoft Way, Redmond, WA 98052-6399 USA. All rights reserved.
Engineers are presented with new challenges every day. At first, many of these problems may seem impossible to solve. To find a solution, engineers use problem-solving techniques and brainstorm as many creative ideas as possible. What seems impossible at first becomes possible through the use of teamwork, the engineering design process and learning from past successes and failures.
After this activity, students should be able to:
- Explain how engineers use history to guide their designs.
- Demonstrate problem-solving techniques such as brainstorming and the engineering design process.
- Explain that different shapes have different strengths.
- Realize that triangles are the strongest shape and recognize that they can be found in most structures.