This picture illustrates the situation before I finished my egg drop challenge. To prevent the egg from rolling about, we started by cutting the cardboard into four equal pieces.

We then started folding up our newspaper scraps and shoving them into the remaining spaces around the egg to make sure it would be less likely to break when we dropped it. The cardboard piece was placed on top to contain everything in the second image, as you can see, and straws were then placed all around the structure to keep the egg from shattering. Unfortunately, the fall caused our egg to crack.

In the picture, we were attempting to construct the tallest tower capable of supporting a gold ball. The height of our first tower was 6’7″. Then we attempted to make it taller.

This was our second try to make the tower taller; it stood at a height of 7’11” and could support a gold ball. Then we attempted to make it even taller, but we were unable. The results pleased us much.

CONCLUSION!
We experimented with many tactics, learning from each attempt. When making observations and drawing generalizations or patterns from the results, we used inductive learning. In our golf ball tower challenge, we applied inductive learning by seeing how different tower designs affected the height and stability of the construction. We used deductive learning to design our egg protection mechanism for the egg dropper project by using engineering and science ideas.

SELF ASSESSMENT!

My favorite scientific lab is building the tallest tower that can support a golf ball. I am proud because my group and I were able to build the third highest structure in our class that could hold a gold ball. I had the opportunity to build relationships and practice my communication abilities. I used a few techniques to overcome the difficulty of constructing a stable structure for the golf ball. I started by equally distributing the weight to ensure that I had a strong foundation. To properly distribute the weight, I also changed the height and width of each segment of the structure.

What I did in both of my projects to use the scientific method steps: (Golf tower challenge.)

We chose the problem of constructing a tall tower that can support a golf ball for the tower challenge. Then we came up with our hypothesis, which was that we could build a free standing tower using the resources at hand that would produce enough power to hold the golf ball at the top. Then, by building different tower designs, we built and tested our theory. By building our final tower, we completed the experiment and presented our results.

(Egg drop challenge.)

The challenge of dropping an egg from a great height without it cracking was our first step. Then we came up with a hypothesis which was “if we work together as a team and use our materials effectively, then we can design a mechanism that will keep our egg from breaking.” Then we built many egg droppers to design and test our ideas. We completed the experiment and came to our conclusion.

Reflection!
I demonstrated that I can create new things when I use my imagination and engineering skills.

I demonstrated that I can build on the ideas of others when I collaborate and brainstorm together.

I expect failure and setbacks when trying new things and use them to improve my ideas. When we ran into difficulties with what we were doing in the scientific method labs, for instance, we had a problem with coming up with a new design after the first one failed yet we didn’t give up. Instead, we learned from those setbacks and improved our strategies.