- Year range:
- Y6-Y12
- Strand:
- Physical World
- Category:
- Devices
- Competencies:
- Participating & Contributing; Thinking
Task
In a team you have 1 hour to plan and build a device that can ‘bust’ down a building (in this case an empty soft drink can standing upright on its base) as far as possible.
Materials
- 1 roll of sticky tape
- 10 straws
- 10 ice-block sticks
- 10 BBQ skewers
- 2m string
- 2 lengths of tie wire
- one 20cm x 20cm piece of corrugated cardboard
- 10 sheets of A4 paper;
- sand-filled film canister (from camera shop)
- 3 rubber bands.
- 1 pair of pliers/side-cutters
- 1 pair scissors
- 1 pen. (The pen, pliers and scissors aren’t to be used in the device).
Conditions
The building buster is to knock over the can and project it along the ground as far as possible. The building buster must be built on and attached to the corrugated cardboard. It will be set behind a line drawn on the floor and must remain behind the line after knocking over the can, without moving from the spot.
Judging Criteria
The score will be the distance from the nearest point of the can back to the line. You’ll be given 3 goes at knocking down the ‘building’. The longest measurement will count as the final mark. Adjustments but no additional construction may be made between attempts.
Please write your school name and group number on the can before you start.
Judges may prefer to add all three attempts together to get a final total, if marks are too close together to determine a winner after counting only the longest attempt.
Can be made easier by:
Having longer to plan the ‘building buster’.
This challenge is available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial New Zealand Licence.
