Fifth grade students in Ms. Kari Costanzo’s class have been learning the engineering design process and have used their skills to construct pompom launchers with a set number of simple objects including straws, popsicle sticks, tape, string and plastic cups to see how far their experiments could go.
As engineers, they examined the materials they could use, came up with their designs and moved on to building, testing, modifying and testing again. The students conducted an informal contest to see who developed the one that went the farthest (Clara Pearce), the sturdiest one (Kemp Garrett) and the simplest and most inexpensive one (Nina Gnatenko).