We did several demonstrations showing the strength of arches. One of the most interesting was when we stood on a carton of eggs! This shows the power of weight distribution among the different eggs, but also the way one arch directs the load out and downward, increasing its strength. We found instructions for this activity online (inspect the eggs for cracks first, turn them all facing the same direction, try to put your whole weight down evenly on the foot rather than on just your heel or something) but it still made us quite nervous! We started with Junie, just in case.
They didn't have to be too strong to hold this little pixie, so we worked our way up through the children all the way to Abe.
No breakage! Hooray!
I didn't want to participate, but the children insisted. And the eggs even supported me! Here is my surprised face.
We also tried to break these eggs by squeezing them (in plastic bags). In spite of our most strenuous efforts, they didn't break! Impressive.
No comments:
Post a Comment