Machines from recycled things

Ages 6 to 8 Read together, then try alone · about 30 minutes

Read together

Engineers solve problems by planning, building, testing and improving.

Today your problem is: make a marble run from things that would be thrown away.

It must get a marble from the top to the bottom without falling off.

Do it

1. Collect cardboard tubes, cut-open boxes, tape and a big ball or a small ball (not a tiny marble if there are young children around).
2. Draw a plan first. Which pieces go where? Which way do they slope?
3. Build it, test it, and note what fails. Change one thing at a time.
4. Race two designs. Which is better, and why? Draw your final version.

Talk about it

• What did you change after the first test?
• What would make it even better?

For the grown-up

The engineering design process is to define the problem, plan, build, test and improve. Failing and trying again is part of it. Praise the changes and thinking, not just the result.

Mark as done

← Previous lesson Next lesson →

Where this comes from

• NGSS Lead States, Next Generation Science Standards: For States, By States (National Academies Press, 2013), performance expectation K-2-ETS1-1 (ask questions, make observations and gather information about a situation people want to change to define a problem)
• Museum of Science, Boston, Engineering is Elementary curriculum on the engineering design process

Written with AI assistance and checked against the sources listed. Please read it before sharing it with a child.