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Description: There were 3 teams of 4-5 people. The project was to build the tallest structure that is sturdy and can stand alone for 1 minute. This structure must be built only using straws and 2 feet of masking tape.
Brainstorm: Our strategy for making our structure stand up was to give it a sturdy base using a square. Then, we decided to make lots of squares and build up using them. That way, our structure would stay standing. We thought more about how sturdy it was instead of the height. We decided to focus on it standing up first, then work on the height after.
Procedure:
We made lots of squares from the straws to create a sturdy structure.
We used small pieces of masking tape to tape the squares together, making a tower.
Once we were confident that our structure was sturdy enough to stay up, we made a long poll using the straws we had left and taped it into our structure. This made our structure taller.
SOUL reflection:
S-What worked: Building our structure out of squares we made worked really well in terms of sturdiness because our structure never fell down. We had planned to make the squares just for a base, but it worked really well so we continued using squares.
O-What didn't work: Using squares didn't work in terms of height because it didn't make our structure very tall. Adding a long poll made out of the straws was a last minute addition because we needed our structure to be taller.
U-What did you learn: I learned that although we thought focusing on the sturdiness of the structure, that may not have been the best idea. we thought that we could focus on the sturdiness, but other groups would be focusing on the height, and we would win because our structure would stay standing. It turned out that one of the groups had a really good idea and they had a sturdy, but still tall structure.
L-What prevented you from having a successful project: I think our project was pretty successful, but we could have been a little bit more focused overall.
WISCR: I think we displayed the traits "clear communicators" because we talked about what we needed to do easily and we were able to communicate well as a group. We also showed the trait of "insightful and critical thinkers" because we kept trying different ideas, and we kept thinking of different ways to have a successful structure.
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