I became aware of this competition a little over a year ago (2017 challenge,
which was different from this one) when I was perusing the sciencebuddies.com
site. I thought it was interesting and tried it with my daughter's class along
with a few other classes.
Though the teachers and I were concerned
about spilling water in class on the carpet (yes, last year's project involved
a tub of water), it wasn’t too bad. And the project was great! The students
learned a lot, but more importantly, they had fun figuring things out for
themselves.
Year after year, this Flour Engineering Challenge
is just plain fun. But best of all, it gives your children opportunities to win money for their school.
The objective of the 2018 Fluor Engineering Challenge is to
use limited materials to build one device (the launcher) that launches an
aluminum foil ball and another device (the receiver) that catches the ball. The
farther your ball flies before being successfully caught by the receiver, the
more points you get.
Your children can use only a limited list of materials, and there
are points associated with each item. The less material your children use, the
more points they keep.
List of Materials (see website for more detail description):
Corrugated cardboard base
Large paper or plastic cups
Wooden rulers
Paper
Wooden pencils
Rubber bands
Large paper clips
Roll of adhesive tape
2018 Flour Engineering Challenge Website
Challenge objective & info
In mid-February, I’m
planning to do this project at a local elementary school. I’ll
share the results with you afterwards.
Have
fun!
