STEM CHALLENGE 

WEEK 2

How and who can build the tallest snowball structure - were the instructions given to all students at St Cath’s for our second STEM challenge for the term. We had some amazing engineers yet again master up designs that would withstand a blizzard on the coldest Arctic day. 

Our winners for this round were - 

Year 5/6 - Cristina and Daania

Year 3/4 - Medina and Lucy

Year 1/2 - Oliver and Xander

Foundation - Drake and Saul

How did we win?

In order for us to  win we had to design a way that our structure would be stable and tall. In class we discussed what shapes were strong and decided to use a hexagon and columns for the most structural integrity. We used lots of teamwork by one person holding the marshmallow structure and the other person carefully placing the marshmallows and toothpicks on. Since our design was a success we repeated the same thing on top, building it up even higher.

How did we decide what shape our structure would be?

We were thinking about how we were going to do this. So we got out a piece of paper and sketched out what we were going to do. We experimented with both options and in the end we chose the hexagon over the square. It was more stable and steady, the square was very wobbly and needed a lot of stability. In the end our structure still wasn't the tallest, but we had one idea left. We stuck the last of our toothpicks at the top causing us to win, leading us to our VICTORY.

Cristina and Daania, Year 6

Lucy and I started with mini blocks and kept adding, making sure that it was stable along the way. We worked well as a team because while one held it, the other added sticks and marshmallows. We knew our structure was good and could be held without falling.

Medina and Lucy Year 3/4

We enjoyed putting all the marshmallows and sticks together. It looked easy at the start but once we started, it was harder than we thought. We each made our own builds. First they fell over. We broke up the builds, thought more about it and worked on a new build that we thought would work. We did. It won!

Ollie and Xander, Years 1/2

We made triangles to make it even bigger. I liked building the tower. I liked glueing the marshmallows and making the triangle high because it was fun. 

Saul and Drake, Prep