Issue 4 June 2016
The Junior Journal
Please help name me! I’m having an iden ty
BRRRR! Happy Winter! It’s a BUMPER issue! Hi Junior Engineers! First of all, we have to say a huge thank you to all the junior engineers and their families who came along to The Frankston Good Friday Family Fun Day! We loved mee ng you all and were very impressed with your crea ve construc ons and scien ďŹ c curiosity! It was our ďŹ rst event and we were so happy with the way it all went. Rebecca Savage from Savage A rac ons has invited us back next year. Here are a few snaps from the day.
Winter me is the perfect me for lots of construc on, cra( and experiments. It is also a good me for old fashioned board games, card games and computer games. But if you’d really like to experience the season, make some me to go to The Big Freeze Fes val at Cranbourne Racecourse this Winter School Holidays from Saturday July 2Sunday July 10. We will be there on Friday 8th July and are very excited to bring you icy experiments, chilly construc ons and cool ac vi es. You can play in the snow, make a snowman, and so many more fun Winter ac vi es without having to trek to the mountains! Hope to see you there! More informa on at www.thebigfreezefes val.com.au
Science—Garden Detective
In honour of World Environment Day on June 5th, we’ve included a li le packet of things for you to grow. There are seeds all around us. Some of your favourite seeds might be dandelions. I bet you’ve made a wish or just had fun blowing a full ball of ny parachutes into the sky! Another seed that I really love are ‘copters.’ They are spinning seeds that maple trees produce and they make the most of their ‘wing’ to flu8er all around, giving the tree
the best chance of having its seeds grow.
Speaking of which, can you tell apart the seeds from the bulbs in your packet? Seeds and bulbs come in all sorts of shapes. I can give you a big hint: one of your seeds is a pea and the other is a bean. Plant them both at the same me and have a race to see which will sprout first and which will grow the highest! Both will need to be planted to a depth of 5 cm and both will need watering and a sunny spot to grow. Both are climbing plants and so should have a stake to support them as they’ll want to grow up! The other two are bulbs. They have a pointy end and at the other end, there’s a flat sec on where the roots will grow. Plant so that the pointy end points up, and the roots down. Bulbs also need to be in a sunny spot and also need to be planted to a depth of 5 cm. Both your bulbs are different flowers and their iden ty will be a secret and a surprise for you when they grow. As an extra surprise, both flowers will be differently shaped from each other. All can be planted in June. Have fun growing these vegies and flowers!
Technology— Coding for Winter Flash Game Tuts is an online resource that teaches kids how to use different sorts of code to build games. Follow this link h8p:// www.flashgametuts.com/tutorials/as3/how-to-create-a-game-likewinter-bells-in-as3-part-1/ to be introduced to a tutorial about crea ng a game like “Winter Bells”. In this game, the snow bunny jumps from bell to bell accumula ng points for each successful bell hop. So much fun! For Frozen fans, Code Studio has a step-by-step tutorial that will help you learn how to code and move Elsa across the screen in the direc on of your choosing. Once you’ve mastered this, you can get more complex with your commands and write code so that Elsa or Anna can create a snowflake by ska ng on ice! Check out: h'ps://studio.code.org/s/frozen/stage/1/puzzle/1 for the full program. Such beau ful pa'erns!
Engineering—Building with snow Some of you might know your way around snow, but for most of us, snow is a mys cal thing that happens in other people’s lives. I’ve been researching the best way to make a snowman. Engineers say that you need to work with wet snow. I thought, that’s funny, isn’t all snow wet? But there’s a difference between types of snow, just like there’s a difference between types of rain, it’s all water, but the density of the flake or drop changes dependent on other weather condi ons. Wet snow, like wet sand, holds shape very well. Water in liquid form acts like glue s cking snow to more snow, enabling big snowballs to be built. Try to centre each sphere, or your wobbly snowman will not last long!
Here are the top ps: 1.
Build on a flat surface
2.
When you make balls or spheres out of snow, you are building a strong structure. Other shapes don’t distribute forces evenly.
3.
If you are building a snowman using more than one sphere, the biggest sphere needs to be at the bo8om and the smallest sphere at the top. Try to build in propor on. Two or three spheres are a good number, any more, well, that adds up to a lot of weight for each sphere to support.
4.
Don’t build with powdery snow. You’ll need a snow to water ra o of 5:1 for snow to s ck together. Pack the snow firmly. If you haven’t, there will be stress fractures in the sphere that will cause it to collapse. The bigger your snowman, the more prone it will be to collapse. Sourced from Helen Thompson Do You Don’t forget a hat, carrot and eyes! And have fun! Want To Build A Snowman? Physics can help. h'p://
5.
www.smithsonianmag.com/sciencenature/do-you-want-build-snowmanphysics-180954024/?no-ist
Mathematics—Symmetry When you think about it, most of Maths is about symmetry, in arithme c and algebra, one side of the equa on equals the other. Nature also likes symmetry. People are symmetrical; our right side of our body is almost a mirror image of the le( side of our body. Snowflakes are symmetrical along three different planes, ver cally, diagonally from right to le( and diagonally from le( to right. Try making your own snowflake by folding a piece of paper in half, half again and half again, cuHng out a pa8ern on both sides of the triangle you’ve formed. You could be really clever and check out this website to form a six sided snowflake!
This snowman is symmetrical, un l you add a carrot nose! Use your dice and race friends to draw a snowman. You’ll need to roll a 1 and a 6 before any of the other numbers will count! First one to draw their snowman wins! Roll a 1 for the body Roll a 2 for each eye Sourced from: h8p://alphamom.com/familyfun/holidays/how-to-make-a-paper-snowflake -tutorial/ How to Make a Paper Snowflake
Roll a 3 for the carrot Roll a 4 for the hat
By the way, we need your crea ve minds to help us solve this problem! This cute li8le robot, who has been designed by Hilary Cresp of Essayer, needs a name! We’re running a cool giveaway and could really use your
Above: Congratula ons to all our compe on winners! We hope that you have fun with your prizes!
Below: Our clever junior engineers exploring STEM! Have you been growing crystals? Building pizza shops? Making a rain gauge? Crea ng a bunny burrow? Blowing up balloons, welcoming a new pet into your home or have you celebrated a birthday? We love receiving your photos!
juniorengineers@e-struct.com.au www.facebook.com/groups/estructjuniorengineers is proudly supported by e-struct
consul ng engineers.
Snowy STEM The Three Mountains Problem
Can you solve this problem using the three building s ckers and the three people s ckers supplied in your ac vity pack? You must use all the s ckers to solve this problem. CLUE 1: Before you s ck the s ckers…. Only one building will fit on each mountain. Each mountain must have one of the buildings stuck to it. The clues below will help you work out which mountain has which building on it. CLUE 2: Each person visited a different mountain. There is only room for one person on each mountain. The clues below will help you work out which mountain each person visited, or will tell you which building each person visited. CLUE 3: The policeman is visi ng the tallest mountain. CLUE 4: The house is on top of the smallest mountain. CLUE 5: The fireman is at the fire sta on. CLUE 6: The Pos e is not at the shop.
© Bridie Briggs 2016
Snowy STEM The Chill Factor: Arguing Explorers A(er marching side-by-side for three weeks, these two explorers were sick of each other. As soon as they had reached their des na on and had taken their scien fic measurements, this conversa on happened:
If I have to spend another day with you, I’ll go crazy. I simply can’t stand your complaining all day long!
And I can’t stand your snoring all night long. I wouldn’t stay with you if you paid me.
In fact, I’ll start on my way back right now. Don’t you start for another hour, so that there will always be 5 kilometres between us!
A(er two hours, the girl explorer had walked 10 kilometres and the boy explorer had walked 5 kilometres. Both explorers had walked due south. But the difference in the distance between them was not 5 kilometres, but 15 kilometres! How was that possible? Source: Heimann, R. (1990) Preposterous Puzzles, Periscope Press: Hawthorn.
There’s no Business, like Snow Business Seven kids had each built a snowman. They approached a carpenter with a request: “We’d like each snowman to have his own space but we’ve only got enough wood to build three long straight fences. We can’t work out where they can go.” Can you? Adapted from: Pinkey, J. (1992) The Big Book of Puzzles, Riddles & Muddles, The Five -Mile Press: Balwyn.
This word square reads the same across and down. Here are the clues to complete it.
S1
CLUE 2: Number
N2
CLUE 3: On a single occasion
O3
CLUE 4: Unwelcome garden plant Adapted from: Pinkey, J. (1992) The Big Book of Puzzles, Riddles & Muddles, The Five-Mile Press: Balwyn.
W4
N2
O3
W4
Why have we sent you a hand? Hands mean so much. When we meet people for the first time, or are reunited with them, we offer our hands in friendship, we speak with our hands, we create music with our hands, we applaud the efforts and performances of others with our hands and we reassure and soothe loved ones with our hands. From ancient times, the first people in Australia left their unique marks on rock walls creating hand stencils. Children’s hands appear at children’s heights, more important tribal members had their stencils appear higher and only the most important tribal members were able to stencil their whole arm. Hand stencils are sometimes arranged to form bigger and more complex pictures.
At e-struct, we gratefully acknowledge and appreciate the Boonwurrung people and during this week especially, seek to acknowledge their legacy.
Sea of Hands origins The Sea of Hands was conceived in 1997. It was created by ANTaR. The Sea of Hands is Australia's public art installation and it colourfully represents the names of over 300,000 Australians who have shown their support for native title and reconciliation. We wanted our junior engineers to be a part of this gesture. In your own way, decorate your hand and maybe have a think about how learning about the past helps us to create a future filled with understanding.
Snowy STEM
Answers
The Three Mountain Problem: Smallest Mountain = Pos e, house; Medium Mountain = Fire-fighter, Fire brigade; Tallest Mountain = Policeman, Shop. The Chill Factor The two explorers had their disagreement at The North Pole. Every direc on you walk from the North Pole is South. The two explorers waled in exactly opposite direc ons. That’s why there is 15 kilometres between them. No Business Like Snow Business S1
N2
O3
W4
N2
I
N
E
O3
N
C
E
W4
E
E
K
Snowy STEM
Bonus Activities!
Extra Puzzles! Pop on your snow shoes and make your way through the maze to the North Pole. How many differences can you find between the snowmen?