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After exhausting our study of simple machines the class insisted on exploring complex machines! And with this idea came all their thoughts and questions! “Back hoe loaders have many parts like levers and inclined planes and wheels and axels,” Davis pointed out. Of course this class would need to get more complex! Also, they were not satisfied with just looking at the machines that other people have designed. Aaron was very disappointed that we couldn’t find a “Snap jaw crane, with an alligator head” somehow attached to it. We decided we needed to make our own machines. e May 24, 2013 What good are blue prints if you never build the thing that you designed? It was time to get to work! We followed the design for the “water lifting machine” to build a complex machine that we could use in class. We also found that using screws and wood glue worked much better then tape, which was one of the suggestions on how to hold everything together. Since we had the blue prints, we needed to build individual machines. This took several days. The kids stayed so focused as they each created their own detailed machine! After working for two days on his machine Aidan asked “Can we keep working on these tomorrow. I really need to add a few more parts.” The answer was “Yes of course keep working, keep focusing, and keep exploring!” We were so proud of them! In small groups we drew step by step blue prints for a machine that we wanted to make. Although, the “snap jaw crane” incorporated Ella’s idea to use a bucket as a base and Aaron’s idea to make the top of the crane a jaw, it wasn’t exactly what either of them wanted. So the class designed individual blue prints for the machine that they wanted to build on their own.
