Think Like An Engineer

 My Brownies and Juniors are working on Think Like an Engineer.  I'm not sure yet if we will finish it with a TAP or not, but the girls like to make stuff and I wanted something I could do with both groups.  I summarized the VTK plans in a prior post, but this is the first time I've led this Journey. 

I started with reading them a story about engineer Temple Grandin, which talked about engineers as  problem solvers.  The I  reviewed the design process with them.  I had decided to start with the Junior newspaper structure from meeting 1 because I thought the mess would be minimal and we were meeting at the library as our normal meeting area was out of commission due to Hurricane Ida.  

I reminded the girls that we had built things before and asked what shape was the strongest.  Then I showed them the strength of a rolled tube. Since we were at the library, I had encyclopedias for them to hold up with their structures.  I gave each one eight sheets of newspaper and a roll of  scotch tape, and told them the only thing they were allowed to tape was the newspaper.  

I was a little surprised at how long they worked at it without getting impatient and quitting--I think being in the library, a little out of our usual element helped. Actually only about half succeeded.  

At our next meeting we were back in our usual spot--a covered patio outside my church.  Since it was ok to have ping-pong balls flying around, I thought the pop fly activity from the Brownie plan sounded like fun.  I gave each girl a brick-sized box of water (thank you FEMA), two paint stirrers (thank you Sherwin Williams), some painter's tape, a small paper or plastic cup and a ping pong ball.  I explained that the challenge was to make something that would fling the ball, and that we'd try to see who could make it go the farthest as well as who could hit a target.  They stared blankly at the materials until I took a stirrer put it on the box and popped it and told them it was a hint.  One of my Brownies "got" it first, taped the cup to the end of stirrer, balanced it on the box and let it rip.  We talked about control and what she could change to get more control.

A lot of my Juniors tried taping the stirrer to the box and then using it like a stomp rocket.  They had fun with this challenge

I know we should do a TAP and I certainly won't give out the TAP patch unless we do, but honestly I don't want to.  Yes, I'm an awful leader.  

Next time we work on this, I think we are going to do the puff mobile from the Daisy plan.  Another thought I had was to make roller coasters from pool  noodles as we never did that as Daisies. I think it would give them a lot of chance to engineer and change things and see what happens.