Be a rescue hero!
Engineer a flotation device to save a toy with Caitlin Luttjohann, Director of STEAM Education at the Kansas Children’s Discovery Center. Explore buoyancy, test your creativity, and discover your inner engineer. This activity is powered by our friends at Evergy.
What you need:
- Toys that can withstand water and sink in water.
- Recycled items (for example: popsicle sticks, cork board, rubber bands, bubble wrap, plastics, etc).
- Tape.
- Bucket.
- Water.
Directions:
- Fill a bucket half full with water.
- Use recycled materials to build a flotation device that will keep the toy from sinking.
- Test and make improvements to your flotation device as needed.
Ways to expand:
- Add toys to the challenge. How do you need to change your device so it holds more toys?
- Create a story to go along with the materials. Use a different toy as a villain and the hero toy has to find a way to cross the ocean to escape!
- Create two different types of devices: one that attaches to the toy and one that does not attach to the toy. What are the pros and cons of each type of device?
What kids learn:
- Density is what determines whether an object sinks or floats in water. If something is less dense than water, it floats. If something is more dense than water, it sinks.
- Basic engineering skills. Engineers solve problems with constraints, in this case, limited materials and air pressure. They learn to solve problems by using the engineering design process: asking questions, coming up with solutions, building, testing and improving.
- Fine motor skills. Kids practice using the small muscles in their hands later used for writing.
- Experimentation! When kids experiment, they’re learning how to learn. Failure is an important part of experimenting, so let kids try things that won’t work. It’s how they figure things out!
Vocabulary:
- Density: The weight and size of an object. A fluffy pillow might be larger, but has less density than a brick. A crayon might be smaller, but has more density than a feather.
- Buoyancy: the ability or tendency to float in water, air or some other fluid.