​ThinkerSpace: Marble Run

Your Challenge: Design and build a marble track using recycled materials.
Background: Recycled materials are things that have already been used once but can be used again for something else.
Materials Needed: Cardboard tubes (like the ones left over from a roll of paper towels or toilet paper), tape, a cup, scissors, a marble, and other found items in your home.
Considerations: As you design the marble track, consider these questions:
1. How is your marble track like a roller coaster?
2. What parts of a roller coaster can you add to your track to make it exciting?
3. What would your track need to be like to make the marble jump across a gap?
4. Test your marble track with different sized marbles or other round objects. Do different sized objects make it through the track at different speeds.
5. Post some pictures in Teams!

Morse Code

Your Challenge: Create your own Morse code language and device to communicate with.
Background: Morse code is a language, consisting of dots and dashes, used to communicate messages, especially in emergencies. Each letter is assigned a unique combination of dots and dashes. You can then use those unique combinations to spell words and communicate entire messages.
Materials Needed: Anything that makes sounds, light, or symbols (piano, cymbals, flashlight, cards with symbols on them), and a friend or family member.
Goal:
1. Develop your own language of sounds or symbols.
2. Teach it to a friend or family member and use it to send each other secret messages.
3. How will you send the message? Consider a series of symbols over text, a flashlight or musical instrument, or a new invention that uses light or sound to communicate.

​Face Mask

Your Challenge: Use materials found in your house to design a protective face mask or shield.
Materials Needed: A variety of household items like: rubber bands; elastic bands; double-sided tape; foam strips; felt; sheet protectors or plastic report covers; any kind of hard plastic sheeting for face shields; vacuum bags; cloth diapers; cotton; dish towels; pillowcases; napkins; screen (extra from a screen door); duct tape; fabric, etc.
Background: Hospitals across the world are low on protective gear, like face masks and shields. People, just like you, are designing and making these items for healthcare professionals to use.
Considerations: As you design the mask or shield, consider these questions:
1. Will the mask protect the wearer from germs in the air?
2. Is it comfortable?
3. Does the mask create a seal to prevent particles from getting inside?
4. Is it easy to replicate (or make over and over again)? 

​Paper Tower

"Your Challenge: Design the Tallest Structure
Materials Needed: One sheet of 8.5" x 11" printer paper, 11 inches of tape (use the long edge of your paper to measure if you don’t have a ruler), a pair of scissors
Goal:
1. Using only one piece of paper and 11 inches of tape, build the tallest structure you can. As you design your structure, think about how you will keep the structure stable as it gets taller.
2. How have you seen other tall buildings designed? What shapes are most commonly used? Does the shape of the building change from the bottom to the top? Why do you think that is?
3. Measure the height of your structure.

​Rube Goldberg

Your Challenge: Complete the Rube Goldberg Bar of Soap
Watch this video on the history of a Rube Goldberg machine:

Background: A Rube Goldberg machine is an overly complicated contraption that accomplishes a simple task.
Materials Needed: A bar of soap, plus anything else you can find to make chain reactions to move the soap through the contraption. This could be books, cards, dominoes, balls, frisbees, pie pans, or other household items.
Goal: Design a machine that will drop a bar of soap into your hand in 10–20 steps. Get some inspiration by watching this very complex Rube Goldberg machine in action: