Kids’ STEM Workshop: Float or Won’t-Boat Building!

 

The skinny: This program went amazingly well! We had 60 people attend, and during the activity boat building time parents were taking out their phones to take pictures of their kids and their boat creations. IT was also an incredibly cost effective program to offer.

Cost: Maybe $10. I bought 2 rolls of 180 foot aluminum foil. I also had to buy under-bed storage containers, and plastic dish wash tubs. These were about $80, but they were a one-time purchase and we can use them over and over again. I also went to the bank and exchanged $20 for pennies. If we were to do this program again, I would exchange about $30 in pennies. As the kids kept building better models of boats, they kept using more pennies and we began to run out towards the end of the night.

Prep: I pre-cut about 100 squares of tin foil roughly 12-14 inches each. I set up three tables along the center of my room and placed the under bed storage on them so that kids could walk up to them to experiment with their boats. I also had 6 tables set up around the perimeter of the room for building time.

I brought the kids into the Storytime room for a 15 minute orientation. An local college history professor talked about Columbus and the history of ships.

Then, we played a game, “Float or Won’t”. I had a whole tableful of stuff and the kids predicted whether each item would float…or won’t! I would count down, with the kids, before dropping in each item: “3…2…1…!” A teen volunteer wrote a grid on the white board, and we tracked if each item floated, or did not, and then compared the answers at the end.

The last two items I dropped in were a pipe cleaner and a marble.

• What makes an item float or sink?
• We talked about 3 reasons why objects float or sink.
  • Buoyancy
  • Density
  • Archimedes’ Principal

Usually, we can determine if an object will float or sink based on if the object is light or heavy (buoyancy)

Buoyancy:

• Light=float=buoyant
• Heavy= sink= not buoyant
• (Show them the pipe cleaner, and the marble again)

Density:

Show them the two cups, one filled with marbles, and the other filled with pipe cleaners. Cup with marbles is more dense.

Density: The amount of stuff it has inside it, relative to its volume and size.

But…why don’t ships skink? They are really heavy!

Archimedes’ Principal:

Show them the bowl. Begin to pour in water. I had placed a line of tape around the middle of the bowl to prevent me from accidentally over-filling. I asked the kids to tell me to stop when the water reaches the line. Place in any dense object. I used a bottle of corn syrup. The water level will rise.

• What happened?
• In order to make room for the object, the water gets pushed around. It is being displaced. If the object is heavier than the original amount of water, or is very dense, the object will sink.
• Ships are heavy and large and hollow (they have lots of air so people can breathe)
• The ship is lighter than the ocean that is displaces, so it will float.

Then, I told the kids that they would be able to go to a table and take a piece of aluminum foil that I had pre-cut into about 12-14 inch squares. They could use it to make a boat. Then, they would put their boat into the water, and begin to put pennies into it. They would count, and see how many pennies they could put on their boat before it sank.

All the kids made their first boat very quickly and began to place pennies on the bottom. Most of the boats sank after only 20-30 pennies. Becuase the foil was so inexpensive, I told them they could make a few more and keep testing out new designs. At the end of the night, one of the youth built a design that held over 700 pennies!

When we were done build after about an hour, we went back into the Storytime room where we had begun, and I asked each child what their record was. I then went over the principles again on what makes an object sink or float. To end the night, I challenged any of the kids to keep experimenting at home with their parent’s permission, and to bring me in a boat they designed and tell me about it.

Resources used:

I did not use this book in our program, but I think it would be wonderful to read, at least in part to a group of students during a similar program.

–What Floats? What Sinks? A Look at Density by Jennifer Boothroyd

Youtube video:

Buoyancy: What Makes Something Float or Sink?

Kids’ STEM Workshop: Catapults!

Kids’ STEM Workshop: Catapults!

This has been my most popular STEM program. We had 120 people attend, including about 60 parents/children who I had never seen in the library before!

To prep, I learned as much as I could about catapults. These websites were especially helpful:

Catapult Physics

History of Catapults

Build a Catapult

Little Bins for Little Hands: Catapults 

How to make a catapult for kids (YouTube video) This is very similar to the design that we made, however, we rubber handed a plastic spoon on the catapult where the person in the video is placing a penny, and we used pom-poms to avoid any injuries!

The type of catapult we built is a mangonel. Mangonels are simple machines and first class levers.

To begin the program, I brought all the kids into our programming room and had them sit on the floor. I asked them to tell me what they knew about catapults, and I answered questions or clarified their answers as they kept raising their hands to talk. After about 7 responses, I asked my guest speaker, a local professor of history at our local college to talk about the history of catapults. It is always fun to have a guest, and the parents gave me great comments afterwards that they learned something from his 5 minute history lesson.

Then, I had the kids holdup their right arm, and then grab their elbow with their left hand. I told them this would simulate their catapult. I then asked them to drawwwwwww (being very slow and dramatic) their right hand back as if it was being restricted by a rubber band or a rope. As it was drawing back, it was storing “potential energy”. And what happens to all that energy? It gets released! Then I asked the kids “fire” their catapult, which meant that their right hand reversed the motion of drawing back.

I had this image on my projector, so I did tell the kids all the parts of a catapult. Using their arm, I had them point to where each part would be. (I apologize. I forget the image that I found, although if I do find it, I will upload it ASAP!)

Now for the fun part! I told the kids it was now time to begin building catapults!

For our design you need:

• 7 Popsicle sticks
• 2 tongue depressors
• Rubber bands (I bought a huge bag at the dollar store because they came in all sizes and thicknesses)
• Plastic spoon
• Pom-pom

I had all the supplies except for the pom-poms on the table. I also had an example of what a completed catapult looks like at each table. Then, even though there was tons of kids, I was about to talk to the group and give directions, “First you take seven Popsicle sticks and rubber band them together….” and go around to each table to help answer any questions.

When everyone was done making their catapult, I brought them back into our Storytime room (where we had begun) and gave them each one pom-pom. I then gave them 10 minutes to fire off and play. Then, I asked them to line up and fire in a row towards an empty wall (after reminding them that we never fire our catapult off at someone. All the kids listened and followed the rule!). We had about 15 minutes of lining up where I would count down, “Fire in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1!” and then the room would explode in pom-poms! The kids ran to grab their pom-pom when it flew off. Some of the kids lost their pom-pom, so I did give them another one.

This was the most popular STEM activity we have done so far, and it was incredibly fun! It was also very inexpensive, even though we had a large group.