Windproof Wonder
Over the course of the last few days, we created a windmill made out of straws. The assignment was to create a windmill, made out of the materials we were given. The materials, Sydney, Jenna, and I were given were scissors, 10 pins, 10 paperclips, 40 plastic straws, a square of cardboard, and 150cm of masking tape. It was quite a challenge but we pulled together a pretty impressive windmill.
Before we started buliding the windmill, we had to create a plan or draft of the structure. Some of the ideas we had were basing it on the Eiffel tower, or making it similiar to a radio tower. We decided to cross them together, so our tower had double support in the legs, beams, room for the easter truck to go through, and the top was like a radio tower. The easter truck was a toy car that had to be able to drive through the tower, in one or more spaces, providing for us another challenge. After working out a plan, we set to action.
We built the structure by sliding one straw, into another then taping them together for legs. For the center of the tower, we had two cut straws, making supportive beams for the tower, and then attached the top to the beams. The top of the tower was two straws, slid into two straws, similiar to the legs. The top held the fan of the windmill, and a decorational flag (dedicated to One Direction). To give the top extra support, we pinned the straws together in two places, with a paper clip. After finishing the tower, we used the rest of the pins to pin the windmill to the base ( the square of cardboard).
When all the teams’ windmills were finished Mrs.Parrish brought in a blowdryer, and the easter truck. Each team had to place their windmill on a desk and see if the Windmill could hold up to the full strength of the blowdryer. We also had to see if the easter truck was able to drive through our Windmill. When it was our turn, the easter truck slid right through our Windmill’s opening, and somehow our tower managed to stay up to the force of the blowdryer. Some of the areas were really strong and didn’t move, like the legs, the double supports really helped there. But some of the areas were a little weak, like the top because it didn’t really have a lot of support.
This lesson and experiment was very educational. Not only did it teach us about supports, and parts of a structure, but it also taught us about connecting to the real world. I learned that when you have a time limit on building a structure, you should really complete it on time, because your pay can be docked, and it causes alot of problems for the people you are building for. I also learned that you should never sign the paper you get when ordering for supplies, until you count all the boxes or packages, because once you’ve signed you’ve said you recieved all your boxes but you might not have. I had a lot of fun building and learning about structures, and I got some very valuable lessons!
disneyfreakmm 