Constructing Bridges

We had a design brief for building a bridge. This meant we had to plan what type of bridge we were going to build, what it was going to look like and what materials we would use.
Check out these great bridges! Some creative designers in the making!!

Compression and Tension

Today we started to make suspension bridges. We learned about Compression and Tension.
Compression is when things press together

                           
Tension is when things get stretched or pulled out from each other

We made our bridges out of straws and string. Sellotape to stick them to chairs, and some marbles done up in some tissues for our weight.


Next week we will compare the strength of a suspension bridge to a beam bridge.
Post written by Jamie and Tayla

Trip to Pataka

Today we had a trip to Pataka, the museum/art gallery over at Porirua. We marvelled at Peter Trevelyan's sculptures. He builds complex geometric constructions from graphite-pencil leads!

We also had some hands on experience with sculpture. Have a look at our slide show- It was a fantastic time!

How many marbles will the bridge hold?

Mrs Brieseman set us a challenge today- and she set it so at first we were going to flop and then conquer!
First of all we set out some books to act as 2 sides or 'banks' of a river. Then we were given a piece of paper to place across the books and act as a bridge. We had to guess how many marbles would sit on our bridge and we were lucky if 2 would before the whole thing collapsed!

We then folded our piece of paper in half length-ways and again made a guess of how many marbles would our bridge hold. A few more this time, before it collapsed.

Finally, we folded our piece of paper over and over like a fan (corrugated) and placed it on the books.
 

We were amazed at what a difference this made. The bridges held a lot more marbles- up to127 marbles!
With cardboard on either side of our folded paper, our bridge would have been even stronger. Corrugated cardboard has a similar structure

 

Inquiry Topic this term- Bridges

We are going to be discovering all there is to know about Bridges this Term. Have a look at this video clip of moveable bridges. It shows an animation of how the bridge works and then a photo of the actual real-life bridge described.

Investigating Sound

As part of our Inquiry Topic this term, we have been investigating 'sound'. Mrs Brieseman set up 5 different activities - using straws, making megaphones, investigating sound through string, water jars, and balloons! Here is a link to the different activities-  Sound experiments

Acid or Base- chemical reactions

One of the activities in the Science Workshop at last night's hui was seeing the colour changes to substances when boiled red cabbage is added to them. We had some cabbage juice left over so just had to try this for ourselves today! The substances we used were lemon juice, dish washing liquid, vinegar, washing powder, baking soda, and window cleaner. We were able to smell each substance by carefully waving a hand over it and 'wafting' the smell. This is a much safer way to smell things. We then put a little of each substance into an ice cube tray- using a dropper or teaspoon. Once done, we put a few drops of the red cabbage juice in and, like a magic potion, the different substances changed colour.

We also recorded our findings. 
Red or Pink = Acid
Blue or Green = Base
Purple = Neutral

(Many thanks to Kerry Harrison for this idea)

Potato Olympics- Day 2

Finally some clear weather and time to hold our Day 2 events- Potato Sprints and the High Dive! Tough competition!!

Potato Olympics

As part of our Inquiry focus this term we held some Potato Olympics. Everyone had a country to represent in a series of events. There was the catapault and a Sailing Regatta on Day 1. Day 2 will be the High Dive and Sprint races. Watch this spot- more info to come!