{"id":4017,"date":"2020-06-14T19:00:29","date_gmt":"2020-06-14T09:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/legoeng.local\/?p=4017"},"modified":"2020-06-15T18:19:47","modified_gmt":"2020-06-15T08:19:47","slug":"sturdy-tower","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/legoeng.local\/sturdy-tower\/","title":{"rendered":"Sturdy Tower"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/legoeng.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Capture2.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-2716 alignright\" src=\"http:\/\/legoeng.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Capture2-300x224.png\" alt=\"Capture\" width=\"300\" height=\"224\" srcset=\"http:\/\/legoeng.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Capture2-300x224.png 300w, http:\/\/legoeng.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Capture2.png 344w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>This building challenge provides an opportunity for students to explore concepts related to sturdy design, including load distribution, rigidity, balance, and strength.<\/p>\n<h2>The challenge<\/h2>\n<p>How would you design and construct a tower with LEGO bricks to support the weight of a stack of books?<\/p>\n<h2>Possible learning sequence<\/h2>\n<ol>\n<li>Discuss sturdiness with the students and explore some of the reasons why certain structures are sturdier than others. Show some examples of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/search?q=sturdy+towers&amp;tbm=isch\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">sturdy design<\/a> and not-so-sturdy design (such as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/search?q=soft+story+failure&amp;tbm=isch\">soft story failure<\/a>).<\/li>\n<li>Discuss and agree on the criteria for the challenge. For example:\n<ul>\n<li>Each tower should be at least some minimum height (e.g. 6 inches or 150mm)<\/li>\n<li>The tower should be sturdy enough to support an agreed weight, such as some number of textbooks.<\/li>\n<li>You will work in pairs and have 10 minutes to build your tower.<\/li>\n<li>The contruction must only use LEGO beams, plates, axles, and connectors.<\/li>\n<li>Stacking bricks is not allowed.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Encourage the students to test\u00a0their structures and redesign as they work.<\/li>\n<li>Once the time for building has elapsed, gather the students for the final strength test. Have the student pairs come up one at a time to test their designs. Have them record the results.<\/li>\n<li>Spend five minutes at the end of the lesson discussing the towers that the students built. Have them assess which techniques worked and which did not work.<\/li>\n<li>Point out the advantages of interweaving and crossing pieces, adding connector pegs and axles for support, and making supports wider for greater balance and strength.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h2><span id=\"Ideas-for-extension\"><a href=\"http:\/\/legoeng.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/tower.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1728\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-1728 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/legoeng.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/tower-262x300.jpg\" alt=\"tower\" width=\"262\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/legoeng.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/tower-262x300.jpg 262w, http:\/\/legoeng.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/tower.jpg 524w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 262px) 100vw, 262px\" \/><\/a>Ideas for extension<\/span><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Investigate types of trusses. eg. <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Truss\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Truss<\/a><\/li>\n<li>How might you connect different parts of the tower in such a way that the load on the tower is distributed as evenly as possible?<\/li>\n<li>Create the lightest tower that supports a specified weight a given height off the ground.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This building challenge provides an opportunity for students to explore concepts related to sturdy design, including load distribution, rigidity, balance, and strength. The challenge How would you design and construct a tower with LEGO bricks to support the weight of a stack of books? Possible learning sequence Discuss sturdiness with the students and explore some [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":1728,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[164,629,211],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/legoeng.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4017"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/legoeng.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/legoeng.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/legoeng.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/legoeng.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/legoeng.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/legoeng.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/legoeng.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/legoeng.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/legoeng.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}