if I ever see another noodle....

This week put an end to my school's 4th Grade Engineering Unit. My students spent 2 days designing a "to scale" plan for a pasta car. The goal? Creating a car that will race the furthest distance of a ramp, against other student's pasta cars. They were each given a blank "blue print" page, a engineering code of specs and requirements, a rubric they would be assessed with, and a specified number of dried pasta in various shapes and sizes. 2 lasagna noodles (no more) and any number of bucatini, rotelle, penne, ditalini, and ziti. The kids were able to assemble their visions using a hot glue gun. After they built their cars there was a series of tests, analysis, and rebuilds.

The following week, students worked in teams to construct pasta BRIDGES using the same ideas and requirements as with the cars. The goal being to build a strong bridge that would hold the most weight before breaking. A bucket is tied to a string, hung from a paint stick, suspended from the bridge, sets of 10 metal washers are thrown into the bucket at a time until the bridge ultimately breaks. Finally, this week, we spent the mornings of our ISAT testing putting our engineering skills to the test. All 4th grade classes raced their cars on Monday, 1 class a day for the rest of the week broke their bridges. The most a bridge held in my classroom was 249 washers! That was comparable to most other high weights in the other classes with the exception of 1 bridge, the big winner, that held over 500 washers! WAY more than anyone else's! The kids had a great time, learned alot, and I even overheard some say they wanted to try it again at home now that they learned some techniques to make a stronger bridge (triangles!!) and faster car (less glue, better axles!).

As a result of the past 2 weeks' construction events, my classroom has been covered in sticky clumps of dried hot glue, wayward "spiderwebs" of glue gun mess, and pounds of broken bits of dried pasta noodles. I have been discovering them in the strangest places: bookshelves, desks, behind chairs, in the computer printer, on the white board ledges...even after severals days of vacuuming, cleaning and wiping down. So...like the kids...I had a great time, but...if I ever see another noodle...it will be TOO SOON.