Diaper Dome

My 4th graders were very excited as they entered my room today and saw a glue gun and big bag full of diapers. The task was to build a structure out of only diapers and glue. Yesterday they decided on building a "Diaper Dome." I gave them paper and told them to work as a group to create a blue print and then they could begin to build. I sat back and watched. Very quickly I  busied myself recording some of their comments.

"We need to compress them together to create a firm foundation."

"I think we need support beams on the bottom. This must be done first."

"Stop...If we don’t have a strong foundation it won’t work."

"What is we made an arch in this section? Well, all a dome really is -just a bunch of arches."

"I think rolling the diaper will be its strongest state."

"Maybe we could put a long corridor in the middle?"

"Guys, a dome is the best example of compression and tension. Let's stick to that."

"We could use these for tension rings around it."

"We could do a geodesic dome. It could be a good info structure. We could actually make a dome inside a dome.

Student 1: What is the width?

Student 2: Width is how wide it is.

Student 1: I what is means, I am saying what should the width be on this structure?

Student 2: Oh, good question. The foundation should be a minimum of 2 diapers and a maximum of 7. Remember, not too much, not too little.

Half way through construction of the dome this happened:

Student 1: It's not working. I think we are going to fail.

Student 2: It's too late to change things now!

Student 3: There is no failing unless you don't try. It's not too late. What can we do to fix it?

Student 4: What about an Arch? Like the St. Louis Arch?

Student 2: That was my first idea! Look, we can do this....

...and just like that the plan changed and they all got right to work. 

The students redrew the arch on their blueprint and were able to successfully make an arch. They explained their design when complete and told me "The center beam was added just to support the structure."

Design Success!

Start to finish? 30 minutes. 

My favorite comment of the class: 

"I thought this was reading group? Are we even allowed to be doing this? It's so much fun!"