Car Project - Day 1

Today was a productive day on the car project. I recapped requirements and told the class that they should be comparing at least three different car configurations/shapes. Several students had questions about their approach. I encouraged them to consider what the results of their designs were showing them so that they could use that information to make decisions as to the direction they should move, for example, if one design provides larger volume then how can they push that design to yield even more volume.

Several designs used curved surfaces. In essence, these designs were using a sector of a cylinder. I used this as an opportunity to address this with the entire class. I was able to relate the sector directly to a sector in a circle. The total degrees for a circle as we sweep around the center is 360. If we measure the angle of the sector created, we can determine the percentage of the circle used. This then related to the portion of the cylinder used. This works well to determine how much surface area is being used.

For volume of the sector, students would need also need to determine the volume of the triangular prism created with vertices at the circle center, and the end points of the cylinder arc that is being used.

To find the center of the circle, I had students use a compass to determine the center of the circle being used. They used a protractor to determine the angle measurement of the arc.

As I checked on student work, I saw that students were trying to move beyond just rectangular designs. I was pleased to see students considering the surface area and volume impact of wheel wells and other design nuances they had drawn.

I will continue to push students on their designs next class, especially trying to get them to explore pentagonal or hexagonal designs. I expect students to start honing in on a design choice by the end of next class.