Monday 30 May 2022
2P are investigating machines. And what better environment to investigate 'simple' machines than adjacent to the new Middle School build! Miss Matika Poulos has led the class in discovering the six simple machines - the pulley, axel, screw, incline plane, wedge and lever - as the building has developed over the last term.
"We can see levers moving pistons, axels making drums rotate 360 degrees, axels moving wheels and many screws in the machines used on the Middle School building." said Miss Poulos.
One student commented that they had see the conveyor belt, which used the incline plane machine, take things from place to place, from low to the ground up high. "That's how the builder moved the bricks."
"We also saw a lever machine. The builder was using a shovel to move gravel."
Inspired by the busy builders next door, the class have embarked on a design process with the aim of creating vehicles using some of the simple machines they have discovered.
Limousines, cattle and sheep trucks, Teslas, diggers and even Elsa's ice car (inspired by the movie 'Frozen') were some of the vehicles the students were working in teams to create. Problem solving in a collaborative manner is essential to this project and Dee Dee and George were the first to come up with a solution to attaching a working axel allowing the wheels of their Tesla to move freely.
"We chose to build a Tesla because it moves fast and uses the latest technology," said George, the spokesperson for the group.