Amusement Park Building

We have been learning about Simple Machines in Science. This week, we made a model Amusement Park with rides that have simple machines in them. We had to persevere through challenges! Persevering means not giving up and pushing yourself to do something hard. We tried to make our ride our best work.

Our ride could be realistic or imaginative. Our goal was to show Ms Elder how we can problem-solve while building, and explain how our ride uses simple machines. 

Ms Elder put us into support groups. We could go to them if we needed help or advice for how to fix a problem. 

One thing I loved about this activity was: 

"that we got our own paper and we could do whatever we wanted. We had a challenge to show our creativity!" ~ Asma

"it was challenging. If you solve one problem, there are one thousand more!" ~ Renat

One challenge I had was: 

"attaching my pole on my desk for my zip line. I used duct tape." ~ Mary Jane

"to make the cart go on the catapult. I solved it by making the area smooth." ~ ZA

"my ball couldn't make the loop. I tried to remove the popsicle sticks so the ball could go straight." ~ AN

"when I was doing my screw, the ball was getting too much speed. It kept going to fast and falling off the track. I added pipe cleaners to be a wedge and slow it down." ~ Melody

"my pulley. It never stayed so I attached another rope to it but that stopped working and it wouldn't drop. I had to choose a smaller cup and a new spot for the rope so it would work." ~ Olivia

"in my build, there was supposed to be a screw. I couldn't get either of the things to work (the wheel and axle and screw). So I scrapped the screw and replaced it with a pulley." ~ Greta

"I made a pulley. There was not much time and that was very hard." ~ Umar

"securing both the wheels together but I managed to solve it by taping the skewers and putting them on the sides." ~ Eshan

I learned: 

"when I was planning my simple machine, I thought it would be really easy and I would do it fast. When I started to make it, it was so hard." ~ EA

"that no matter how hard you plan it out, there will be problems. You're always having to think: how would I solve this problem? Even if you solve that problem, when you test it, there are 5 new problems." ~ Henry

"that your plan might be exactly the same and sometimes there is nothing the same about it. You kind of have to go with the flow." ~ Yulia

"a lot of things take time to do." ~ Oscar

"at the beginning, I thought a screw was easy. Then I realized, how do you make the screw stand up? So I added a lot of sticks." ~ HR

"that everything has a problem." ~ Thanve

"that some things look easy but they're very hard." ~ YD

"sometimes things don't work out the way you want them to. You just have to go with what you got." ~ Zoya

Assessments were sent home today and final marks were published on the Google Classroom. 

Here are some more pics of us working: