Noah Klisser – Year 9

One lesson at a time

You know what we are doing in STEAM from the previous article, but do you know how we turn our ideas into a reality?

We slide open the doors to the amphitheatre in the LINC building and run over to our machines. We immediately want to test it but have to resist the urge and instead build more sections. How do we build the parts? Well, we are trying to recreate inventions from the 20^th century so that is exactly where we start. We pick any invention from then and start thinking, we look at what we have already made and see if we can make something unique.

Then we just start building, often we use material like cardboard, toilet paper rolls and string.

Often the first few designs don’t work or don’t resemble the invention at all. Eventually you build the perfect design. Then you have to find a way to link it into the rest of the machine. It could be attached to thebeginning of the machine which is often easier as your section can end with a simple marble run.

After this happens Ms Selinger will usually call out “seven minutes to go, start cleaning up”. At this point everyone quickly sets up the machine and the whole class stares to see if it’s all going to work. Usually it doesn’t, but then on the 4^th try it runs smoothly and everyone cheers in excitement that their hard work finally paid off. Then we realise there is way too much to clean up and usually just leave it till next lesson.