Interested in trying your hand at engineering design? Look no further than the books you have at home... sometimes the characters in your favorite books can be the perfect clients!
Read a book together with a friend, classmate or family member. The length isn't important; all kinds of stories present different types of challenges to their characters, so anything from a fairy tale or picture book to an early reader or novel can work. (See book suggestions below to help get you started, but feel free to select a book even if it's not on this list.)
What kind of challenges do the characters encounter in the story -- and how might you help them overcome that challenge? Discuss some of the different problems that arise in the story and brainstorm different ideas to help solve the problem.
Once you've outlined your idea for a solution, it's time to build your prototype! A prototype is an early design or model that you can use to test your idea. You can use whatever you have around the house to build your prototype. Some of our favorite materials for building prototypes are:
Cardboard
Recyclables, like paper towel & toilet paper tubes, plastic bottles, cups, lids, etc.
Foil
Pipe cleaners
Toothpicks
String
etc...
Be creative and think of new ways to use the supplies you already have at home!
Once you've built your prototype, test it out. Demonstrate how it works to family and friends and use their input to make it better. Did it work the first time? Or did something not work out the way that you thought it would? If so, no worries! This is what the engineering design process is all about! Failure is part of the process; just take what you learned from your prototype and make it better.
Book Suggestions (but feel free to use another favorite book, even if it's not on this list!)
Grades K-2
The Three Little Javelinas by Susan Lowell (English; Spanish)
Muncha Muncha Muncha by Candace Fleming (English)
Tortuga in Trouble by Ann Whitford (Bilingual)
The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats (English; Spanish)
Grades 3-5
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (English)
The Magic Treehouse series
The Taratula in My Purse by Jean Craighead George
Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library / Escapa de la Biblioteca del Señor Lemoncello by Chris Grabenstein
Grades 6-8
A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park
Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
Song for a Whale by Lynne Kelly