Spotlight on Maury Engineers!




Ms. Scott's class test their Straw Rockets!

As I'm sure many of you have heard, we are "A World in Motion"! Through a generous grant from the GM Foundation and the Society of Automobile Engineers, all of our students are becoming engineers!

While you might be used to seeing lots of finished work or products posted around the school showing all of our exciting Think Tank and Science activities, this unit is a bit different. Students are partaking in the "Engineer Design Experience" where they are constantly working to solve problems and perfect their specific designs. For this reason, the best way to share what we are doing is through pictures AND videos! Stay tuned in the coming weeks for more pictures showing their progress!

 4th Grade Engineer Design Teams:
  

Students carefully cut out the hull for their Skimmer models.



3rd Grade students begin (safely) testing out a variety of Straw Rocket models. Does the length of the rocket matter? What about the diameter of the rocket? Which travels farthest? Which travels in a straight line? They are exploring all of these concepts!



In "Engineering Inspired by Nature", 2nd grade students look at different seed dispersal methods and work to design toys using various methods. Their toys will work like helicopters and parachutes but include important observations about size, weight and surface area.

Before being given a template for the helicopter, students tried to make something that fell in the same way as a maple seed.

Does a helicopter with one or three paperclips stay in the air the longest?

Recording data

Kindergarten and 1st Grade students explore Rolling Things. In these challenges they determine the impact that weight and ramp height have on the movement of an object.



Ms. Kelly's Class is ready to "Crash and Bash"!

 

Mrs. Dorsey's students also "Crash and Bash"

 I also have exciting news to share! You may have noticed the "TRAINING AREA" marked the end of the 1st floor hallway. This space will be used by Maury 5th graders to design the best JetToy cars they can. Through an in-house competition, four Maury 5th graders will fly to Detroit, Michigan to compete in SAE's 7th Annual JetToy Competition in April! Stay tuned for more pictures, videos and information about this particular challenge  in the coming days.

If you are an engineer, find any of these activities particularly exciting or just want to support our students and have the time, please email me and come volunteer on any of our Think Tank days!

Until next time,
Mrs. Ford