MICRO MODULES

These are short snappy projects which you can do with a class repeatedly or as a one off. Great for getting class interest and if it is last day of term, it is snowing, there has been a fight in the break before your lesson and you need a break from routine!

Examples are:

Crisp. Give pupils 5 perfect crisps from a packet and tell them to create a 3D package to protect the crisps using just a piece of A4 paper and two rubber bands.

Peacock. Works with jewellery project to get class brainstorming ideas. Also useful to develop pupils categorisation skills. Get a pupil to stand against the board (Obviously better to be clean whiteboard) or could lie on big piece of paper.) and then you draw round them. Give out marker pens and encourage pupls to add jewellery and decorative items. Example: A bracelet round the wrist with the name written next to it. When pupils run out of ideas, get them to sort the items into categories. Finally, get them to draw out a spider diagram using the categories and three examples of each category as coloujred icons. If they add a paragraph describing how they worked together on the board, you can then show group working.

Rip. Give each pupil a piece of blank A3 paper. They have to make a 3D hanging Christmas decoration in five minutes using no tools. I.e. tearing and folding by hand. It must be Christmas themed, i.e. candles, santa, reindeer, trees snowflakes etc.

Daisy. Take pupils to an open piece of land where there are daisies or other destructible flowering plants. Split class into threes or fours, set them the timed task of creating the longest daisy chain. Team usually rush off and work seperately, usually panicking about ten seconds before the end as they try to join their individual bits up. Then show them that squashing the stems with their nail makes it easier to tie a knot to join the flowers rather than pushing one plant through a slit in another. Teaching point about fibres in plants being strong and about structures made with natural materials with longitudinal reinforcement (Trees! Ropes!). Then set task again and pupils will usually produce longer chains using this more time efficient joining method. Then set a third time after talking about manufacturing often needing people working together. Hopefully the team who work best together will produce longest chains. Back to classroom for short discusson about how you would allocate tasks efficiently for Mixing concrete / Making 20 large cakes / Making teddy bears. Coud link to Time work using Gantt charts. Could work indoors with uncooked sphagetti and hot water to soften ends in.

Box. Bring in three packaged items. Throw items to class with three different colour marker pens and ask them to write a category of information found on the box on a whiteboard or big piece of paper. If the information they find is already written down, they circle it with their pen. After writing or circling one category, they pass the box and marker to another student. A box of teabags will normaly get you 15+ categories. Then rewrite categories on board as list, splitting up into Customer info, Legal info and promotional info categories. This will provoke plenty of discussion as many things are in two or even three of the areas. Example, Special offer, 90 for the price of 60!

Balls. Give teams three ping pong balls or similar, and 4 metres of string. Tell them they have to make a hanging container for the balls by cutting and knotting the string only. Repeat / replace string with ribbon if it proves difficult. You can give help by making a net board by knocking nails into a board in a grid formation and making a net by tying the string into diamond shapes. Best for pupils with patience!

Droop. Give each pupil a piece of uncooked sphagetti, about 50mm of masking tape and a heavy washer. Get pupils to write their name on the tape, wrap it round one end of spaghetti and the washer. Using a glue gun or heavy sticky tape, tape all their spaghetti to a board so most of it is hanging free with the tape and washer farthest fro the board horizontally. Put the board high up out of harms way until a day or so later. When you return, moisture in the air will have softened the spaghetti making it bend, and it will stay bent when the weight is removed. Talk about atmospheric moisture affecting some materials and start discussion about how we protect the materials from moisture in the air. Also use to illustrate laminating and steam bending principles.

Jim-Jams. Get each pupil to fold a piece of A3 paper in half making it A4, then again making a long strip. When unfolded there will be four strips on the paper. Refold the other way twice and you will have 16 panels on the paper. Ask pupils to produce four different logo's for a company called 'Jungle Pyjamas' in Eight minutes on the top four boxes.

They pass the paper to someone else and now the best two ideas are developed further in the boxes below the originals, in 6 minutes, except also tell them the logo will now only be printed in one colour.

Swap paper again to someone new and ask for a quality final logo to be drawn under the best of the previous two ideas in four minutes. Then pass paper back to original designer who adds what they think of the final design and can sketch further refinements if there is time. Start discussion about why designs may be different from the first idea, talk about ideas evolving as other brains are involved. Use to stimulate pupils to develop their ideas beyond a single sketch.

Crush. Cut a block of wood whose length is exactly the width of a piece of A4 paper. Roll a piece of paper into a tube, secure with sellotape, carefully cutting the tape ends flush with the paper. There must be no kinks or creases in the paper or sellotape. Place a piece of board on top and only then show to pupils. Show them the block supported piece and start balancing objects the pupils give you. Of course it will not collapse and they will soon guess the truth, they wil then usually challenge you to try it without the block.

Balance the board on the top of the paper and you should be able to load up to 10KG on the paper. Use to explain why materials in structures are carefuly aligned with the forces acting on them. Gently pressing in the sides of the tube will instantly collapse the paper. Show how the tube, even when straightened out again (you can iron it flat) doesn't support so much weight.

Crumple. Make a paper tube like the one in the Crush example, place the board on top and strike smartly and squarely with a mallet. You should cause the top of the paper to collapse into concertined triangles. Get the pupils to try this themselves, on the floor! You can concertina the paper neatly for almost half its length.

Drop. Get pupils to bring in five perfect, uncreased or marked empty coke or other cans. They must all be the same height. Rinse clean and place on the floor in a cross. Place a large board on top, and invite pupils to slowly stand on the board. Make sure they step up transferring their weight slowly and without letting their feet go under the edge. They will need to move slowly and spread their weight. As each person stands, the cans will creak. Suddenly the whole board will drop as there is a catastrophic failure. 5 Yr9's will normally do it.

Afterwards you can show the crushed cans which should collapse perfectly until they are 10mm high. Carefully (sharp edges) pull the ends back out a bit and show the triangular creases, created because triangles are the most stable shape. Talk about crumple zones in cars, ductility of metals etc..

Scoop. Give each pupil a piece of A4 paper and 600mm of masking tape. Also access to scissors. Show them a shallow tray filled with beads. they have five minutes to design and make their scoop, then five seconds to scoop up as many beads as possible and tansfer them to a pair of scales. They lose 'weight' for every bead dropped.

Then repeat with panel pins instead, discuss why it works worse, then repeat with photocopy (160gsm) card. Then with card but no glue, tape or other fixings. Talk about designs evolving through experimentation

Cards. Give pupils a company name such as 'triangular bike company' or 'Black snow co-operative' or 'Low ladders Ltd' and get them to design a business card using software of their choice. It must be completed and printed out, with them sitting back in place within 10 minutes. The names are to try and force them off track as they waste time coming up with interesting ideas rather than focussing on production.

Then introduce them to a suitable software package, demonstrate some key tasks suitable for card design using it and then give class twenty minutes to design a new version using the new software. Talk about learning to choose the appropriate software for the task. I highly recommend DrawPlus4 which is a totally free and networkable vector and bitmap package which supports transparency and many fills. get it here

Fingers. Get pupils to bind their 1st and second fingers together using masking tape so they can bend as one. and get them to practise writing neatly. Issue them with 20g of Polymorph (Smart Material) and hot water to heat it with. Cover the shafts of the pens and pencils with a layer of foil (must not be round shafts) and encourage them to mould a shape to improve their control with the pencil. After ten minutes get them to pass their ideas to another person for evaluation and feedback. Repeat. Talk about ergonomics for able and disabled alike. If Polymorph is too much, use blutak or plasticine. Polymorph demonstration films available here

Banana. Bring in a small banana, a sheet of A4 and a sheet of A3. Show the A4 and the banana and ask how many times the banana will fit on the paper. Draw round the banana with a marker. You will usually have a fair bit of space left because of the inefficient shape. Now ask how many times you can fit the banana on the A3. Some will guess it will fit more than twice as many because of space efficiency, others will just double the previous number. Show how larger material sizes often mean more efficient use. Explain role of templates, ask pupils for some standard paper sizes or give them this list and get them to put them in size order.
Stamp: Postcard : A4 envelope: A5: 'Letter' : A2: Poster: Wallpaper:

Sock. Get pupils to take off one sock (Best done on a cold day early in the morning) Issue them with a sheet of A5 (Half A4( card and ask them to make hanging packaging for the sock which doesn't use glue or tape. Use a coathanger to test the designs hang correctly.

Squish. Divide class into three or four teams. Get them to think up and record as many uses as possible for......

Blutak which doesn't include sticking things on walls or surfaces

Sellotape that doesn't mean sticking things together

Wire Coathanger (Can be cut and bent)

Then get the class to read their answers out to see who has the most original and effective uses. The trick here is to emphasise the unusual and creative thinking skills, rewarding pupils as they come up with a good one. Pupils usually debate whether an answer is allowed amongst themselves without much teacher intervention.