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Welcome to the Dunbar STEM Club page!
Here are the projects that we have been working on this term!
We hope that you enjoy looking at our work!
Week 5 - Earthquakes!
Week 5 - Earthquakes!
We wanted to see if we could build a tall, strong but flexible tower.
What happens when a tall building has to cope with an earthquake? We thought about combining triangular and square shapes to create a tower strong enough to not fall over, but flexible enough for it to be shaken vigorously on a bed of jelly!
IMG_7974.MOVIMG_7979.MOVWeek 4 - The Queen is coming! Make Her a Bridge!
Week 4 - The Queen is coming! Make Her a Bridge!
We thought about when the Queen comes to see Parade. She needs to be able to see the divisions marching. What would make a good platform?
The Queen will need to be off the ground to be able to see everyone marching. She will also need to be on a platform that is strong so that she does not fall off. A hand rail is important as she is getting older.
We thought about what shapes make strong structures. Triangles are strong but hard to make into platforms. Squares and cubes are easy to make into a bridge shape, but are not as strong.
We tried combining triangles and squares to make a pretty, strong and safe platform.
Week 3 - Can we make an igloo?
Week 3 - Can we make an igloo?
We explored building with cold materials whilst still being able to keep warm inside.
Watching this video, we tried to see whether there were some top tips to help us work out how to build an igloo.
We then looked at this ice hotel to see how everything from hard ice to soft snow can be used to create large ice hotels.
We started with a 10cm diameter bases.
We found that it was quite hard to make round base, so we drew a circular template to put underneath.
We also learnt that it matters how we stack the cubes on top of each other, and that they need to be stepped in quite a bit to avoid building a tower!
They often collapsed, so we had to keep building them, but each time we got better at making the right shape.
We then tried to keep rebuilding the igloos, but each time with 2-3 less rows of cubes.
We found that we needed to overlap the cubes carefully and make sure that the cubes were quite close together.
It took some bravery to close the top over, balancing cubes in on each other!
After many attempts, we realised that we could not make the rounded dome shape that we see in many pictures of igloos. This is because snow igloos are not spherical but are built in a catenary curve.
We then tried to build igloos on a soft surface, to replicate building on snow.
We learn that when igloos are make on snow, the ice blocks are laid in a spiral pattern.
We tried this using fine sand. It was hard!
Week 2 - Can we make a 'cool' doghouse??
Week 2 - Can we make a 'cool' doghouse??
We need to design a dog house that will keep a dog (kettle with water at 38-39 degrees - dog core temperature) cool.
The inside of the dog house must not exceed 32 degrees when heated from the outside.
Will we manage it?!
What we did
We made a dog from a kettle heated to 38 degrees.
We then designed and made our dog houses.
Using an IR camera and some temperature probes, we measured how effective they were over a 9 minute period of being heated by a radiant heater.
Building Time!
Materials used were:
aluminium foil
polystyrene sheets and peanuts
bubble wrap
cotton wool.
Testing Time!
Success! Even with a warm dog inside the doghouse and 2 radiant heaters on the outside (temperature outside the box measured around 35 degrees), over a 9 minute period, our doghouse temperature rose from 18 degrees to 24 (Group 1) and 26 (Group 2).
Week 1 - Which material is a good insulator?
Week 1 - Which material is a good insulator?
Its January and cold. Can we learn which materials are good a keeping objects warm?
We walked around the school site and looked at some of the buildings using the infrared camera.
It was snowing heavily, so good for checking if the buildings were well insulated, but our pictures became blurred as snow fell on the lens! Can you guess which building is which?!
We then investigated different materials to see how we could best insulate our own building. Could we keep an ice cube from melting or a beaker of hot water from cooling?
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