For our first big science project of the year, we had to design our own cups. We chose partners, then started planning out our cup. We could only have 3 materials, which each cost money, and only had 50 cents to use. our cup also had to fit in a car cup holder, and our goal was to have our cup last twelve minutes with only 2 degrees of temperature change. we spent our $0.50 on
Today, we finally made our cup! we had lots of trouble with getting the cotton balls to stay where we wanted them to, but then we got them to a point that we were proud of where we had gotten to. Then, we wrapped the aluminum foil around the cup and smoothed it as much as we could. then, we were done!
We redesigned our cup today!! we completely forgot about the landfill aspect, and so we focused on that a little more. we replaced cotton balls with foam and a plastic cup with a paper one. hopefully it will work better than our last one!
We finished building our cup today. we didn't pay as much attention to smoothing the aluminum foil as we did last time, and it might have actually helped. The foam didn't fit all of the way around the cup, so we had to improvise a bit. because of our experiences with the cotton balls, though, it was so much easier, and we figured it out pretty quickly.
What is one thing that you learned that will stick with you about this project?
I learned that energy transfers through contact with other particles, when it heats them up. the particles move faster and transfer energy. I also learned that every particle is moving at different speeds, and when they bump into each other, they transfer energy.
What was the most challenging part of this project? Which character trait did you use to overcome this challenge?
For me, the most challenging part was writing our cup plans down on paper. We knew what we wanted to do already and had talked it out. My brain knew it was important to show our work, but at the same time, I felt like it was useless. I used discipline to complete my paper with my best work.
What is one thing you are proud of about this project?
I am proud that our cup was within the price limits, worked the way it was supposed to work, and didn’t have a giant environmental impact. I thought it looked good, worked well, and I would probably use it for my own drinks if there weren't already metal vacuum sealed cups.
If you worked in a group: What did you do to help your team succeed, and what could you have done better?
I helped with giving ideas of how to lessen environmental impact, price, etc. I could have helped more with actually building the cup, though I feel like it is more of a one person job.
Weather unit!
In 3 sentences, summarize what you learned in this unit.
We learned about how latitude, altitude, ocean currents, sunlight, and prevailing winds affect weather and what role they play in doing it. Understanding this showed me that weather is super important for the earth.
What was the most challenging part of this unit? Which character trait did you use to overcome this challenge?
For me, I think that the most challenging part of this unit was understanding prevailing winds. At first, I didn't understand how they changed weather, but I used discipline to pay attention and ask clarifying questions.
What is one thing that you learned that you think you’ll remember in 5 years?
I think that in 5 years, I will remember the difference between weather and climate.
What is something that you wish you had learned more about?
I think I would want to learn about how altitude changes weather, because I would be interested to learn at what rate the temperature and precipitation changes.
L.T: I can combine evidenced-based solutions to design problems such as constructing an earthquake resistant building in order to create a new solution/design
Name 3 problems you encountered during construction and explain how you solved them.
Our original plan was to have our building hang off of the ground, but our exterior structure wasn't tall enough, so both buildings were anchored on the ground.
We almost ran out of paper clips, and so we had to take off some paper clips and replace them with bent half-straws (A new trick we came up with!!)
Our interior structure swayed a lot and we thought it was going to collapse. We fixed this by adding half-straws connecting the interior building to the exterior structure
During construction, how did you test the strength and stability of your structure?
We tried to replicate the earthquake machine by placing the base on our table and sliding it back and forth super fast.
During construction, what strategies did you use to strengthen the weaker areas? Why?
We used tape and string to make sure that no joints or connections slid out of place.
What are the strongest parts of your building? Why?
The strongest parts of our building are probably the base straws because they are connected really tightly to cardboard, and the tippy-top of our structure because it is connected in four different ways.
Where are the weakest parts of your building? Why?
I think that the weakest parts of our building are probably the straws that are connected to the popsicle sticks that held our sandbags, because the way that we had to twist the paper clips around them made it so that the straws got bent a lot and tat made them weaker.
Where did you use string in your structure? Why?
We used string to strengthen the joints where straws were connected to paper clips, because some of the joints were weak and didn't hold.
Where did you use tape in your structure? Why?
We used tape to strengthen spots where a straw went into another straw to form a connection, because sometimes the inner straw would slide out of the outer straw.
If you had 20 more straws and 15 more paper clips, where would you add them? Why?
I think that maybe we would use them to strengthen under the popsicle sticks, because the straws holding the popsicle sticks were one of our weaker spots
Before and after photos!!