Multiple Solutions to the Same Challenge

So far this year we did a lot of awesome things! My favorite thing we did this year was working on making cardboard prosthetic arms in class. We took the cardboard our teacher gave us and cardboard we got from home and we designed a prosthetic arm that could move ninety degrees, and the string that moves the arm has to be attached to the arm like a muscle would be. Designing the arm was hard because you had to make your arm strong enough to hold weight. Then we had a contest against a another 5th grade class next door. The contest was to see whose arm could lift the most weight.

The weights were very small because they had to be able to fit in in the prosthetic arm. Are arm had a little pocket that we put the weights in, but other groups used a basket that helped hold the weights. The weights were all measured in grams. The basket that helped hold the weights were 70 grams. In this project I learned how to work in a group, that you will need strong materials to build a strong arm that could lift a lot of weight, and finally I learned many ways to build a prosthetic arm. For example usually the bigger arms that had thicker cardboard usually lifted more weight than the arms with flimsy cardboard. If I am an engineer when I grow up then I will use this information to make better prosthetic arms for the people who need them.

-Alex