Playful Engineers Maker Space Build-Along: Chain Reactions!

Program Description

Maker Space Build-Along: Chain Reactions!

A Rube Goldberg-inspired romp into the world of building complicated chain reactions to accomplish simple tasks from our own ordinary stuff. Artist/engineer Jay Mankita demonstrates best engineering practices for building our own contraptions – inspiring students to build in class, or at home, from their own toys and household materials. Jay assembles and demonstrates his favorite machine parts live, and adds video examples of some of his more complex builds.

Learning Objective #1:
Students will be able to make their own working models of kinetic machine parts using readily available toys and household objects, and will identify and explain basic principles of force and motion that are expressed through interactions between these objects.

Learning Objective #2:
Students will connect art and engineering, through hands-on play, and through exploration of tools and techniques in the designing, building, and testing of overcomplicated Rube Goldberg Machines.

Learning Objective #3
Students will address problems from different perspectives, engage in cooperative teamwork, and through trial and error, practice a basic systems thinking approach to engineering.

Sessions available in the Maker Space Build-Along: Chain Reaction series:

1)Introductory Presentation

2)Track Feeders, and Booktop Ball Runs

3)Gravity Powered Carousels

4)Dominos and Domino Substitutes

5)Paper Constructions

6)Rolling Cans and Cones

Maker Space Build-Along: Stick-eometry! (workshop) available as a one-time session, or with an additional session for added complexity and insight.
Using pencils, dowels, or tubes made from paper, plus tape and elastic, students make their own toys that can transform from triangles, to pentagons, and pentagrams… or from hexagrams to cubes, and square bottom pyramids! This is a mostly hands-on workshop experience, in which students can work at their own pace. Jay demonstrates several ways to construct these fascinating geometric manipulative toys, and discusses their relevancy to practical (and lightly touching on projective) geometry. Some students will have successfully completed a working model by the end of the class. Please allow time and space during and after class, for the students to share their skills and knowledge with each other.

Please visit www.playfulengineers.com for videos, testimonials, and more program info.