Year 7 Learn Key Engineering Skills Plus Social Impacts

During the School Outreach Program, students learned key engineering skills, the importance of science and maths to problem solving in a real world setting.

Students were broken into small teams and tasked with building a housing structure that would float, simulating the floating communities throughout many developing countries.  

For many groups, the choice of individual materials and the combination of different materials to achieve strength and floatation posed the greatest challenge.  On offer were balloons, paddle-pop sticks, plastic cups, rubber bands, sticky tape, foil, glad wrap, cardboard and straws.  However, only a limited quantity of each material could be traded for their project ‘currency’.

The house models were then tested for structural integrity and floatation, while then adding marbles to the structure to replicate a family inhabiting the it.

CLICK HERE for a gallery of images of the students in action with the Engineers Without Borders staff.