Today I introduced children to the concept of some shapes being stronger than others. First we talked about the types of shapes we had seen in buildings. We made squares and rectangles with mechano. We soon concluded they they weren't very strong as we could deform the shape easily. We added cross braces to create triangles and noticed how much stronger they were.
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| Deforming a rectangle |
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| Adding a cross brace to make triangles |
Then we had a look through our junk modelling box for more shapes. We reinforced a box with cross braces to make it stronger. They explored the strength of cylinders and found it depended on which way they were compressed. Next we will move onto a more scientific way of testing shapes (using weights) when we make some bridges.
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| L can't compress the box as easily with the cross braces attached |
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| R finds that a cylinder is very strong in this orientation |
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