Light Fixture or Rocket Ship?

First Grade Engineers Exercise Ingenuity!

After discovering a discarded light fixture from the church renovation upstairs, J.and O. decided to repurpose it into a rocket ship. As they began formulating their plan, I realized this project would involve a lot of sophisticated math, and I wondered how much support they’d need.

First they needed to determine the circumference of the cylinder that would form the body of the rocket. To get them started, I used a piece of scrap paper to gauge the distance between the center post and the edge of one of the lampshades ... sorry, “rocket boosters.” Then they held that scrap over another piece of paper and made a mark at each end. Holding the center in one place and moving the other end of the paper a little bit, they made another mark on the outside edge of the scrap. They continued this until they had dots going in a full circle, and then connected the dots to create a circle just the right size to fit between the rocket boosters.

They decided to use salvaged cardboard to make the body of the rocket. All on their own, the two worked out that in order to make the rocket body get narrower as it went up, they’d need to make a series of cylinders out of the cardboard, with each one getting a bit smaller in circumference than the last. (See the concentric circles they drew on their plan?) They chose 6 inches as the height of each cylinder, which ended up working out really well for them, as you’ll see. At first, they decided that each cylinder would lose three inches each time, but after making two of them, O. said, “I think we shouldn’t take off three inches. We’re going to run out of inches by the time we get to our mark.”

By now, Y. and A. had joined the group. O. and A. measured the distance left to cover between their first two cylinders and the spot they’d marked off as the top of this section. They found it to be 36”, which they quickly realized equalled six more cylinders exactly. At this point, I helped them create a chart to work out what would happen if they subtracted three inches in circumference six more times. Though it was tricky subtracting three inches from 1 foot 1inch, they managed to figure it out, and discovered that by the time they got to the 6th additional cylinder, it would be too small. They guessed that subtracting two inches might work better, and after they made the calculations, it turned out to be a good solution.

While O. and A. measured and cut the cardboard for the rest of the rocket, J. and Y. formed the rectangles into cylinders, and taped and glued them into place. Once all pieces were on, they covered the whole thing with white tape to give it a cohesive, realistic look. They stamped their names on it, along with a prominent XGS for Xara Garden School, as finishing touches to the design of the rocket body.

They are now in the process of getting the electrical wiring to work so they can get the “rocket boosters” to light up.

Creativity, imagination, initiative, teamwork, problem-solving, persistence, curiosity, innovation, confidence … Isn't this precisely what our world needs?