At Kids Science Labs, our winter camp academy students are taught how to solve problems using design thinking and on this day, we focused on tinkering with stability of our toys. Every kid we know has either accidentally broken a toy, or purchased a poorly manufactured toy that broke too fast and no longer can simply stand up. Rather than have them ask their parents to buy more, we want to teach our community fo problem solvers how to design on their own. This all starts with the basic principle of stability. what does it take to make an object stand up, and how can I adjust an action figure our doll, such that it continues to maintain its balance and center of gravity when I move it around.
Our design day started with a simple task…can you make the following 12oz white cup, stand up, using tape and random-sized bubble tea straws? This problem solving task is a favorite of our students, as it looks so easy, but its actually quite a challenge as they have to learn and use symmetry, by taping the straws at the precise location, such that their legs are equal length from the cup. We iterate this design challenge with various other straws, and then we ask kids to do again using weighted cups, where we increase the challenge with glass marbles that make the stability that much harder.
By testing stability in this way, it helps kids understand how they can use basic materials to actually repair and redesign their toys to work better for them. IT also provides a core iterative experience that helps them learn how to design and engineer their own stable action figures, with features that are designed especially for them.
Stable Action Figures - Examples of our Young Scientist Designs