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Design a moon rover

January 14, 2016 Ticia 10 Comments

For our last big project of the week, we designed moon rovers.  The kids loved this bit of sneaky homeschool science lessons as I got to pull in a bit of physics with our astronomy work for the day.

STEM challenge planetary rover

Design a moon rover supplies

I pulled out our LEGO bins and figures and let them have at it.

Design a moon rover criteria

SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES

This time there was more than one test to check for our moon rovers, all of which is in the rubric.  Moon rover criteria:

  • Must be able to go down a four-foot board at a 45-degree angle and not break as it came down.
  • Must be able to move at least two feet when Mommy pushes the moon rover (I was the person pushing so no one could be said to cheat and push harder or softer)
  • Must be able to hold two people
  • Must be able to hold cargo in it, and the cargo cannot fall out during any of the tests
  • Must stay in one piece for the crash test

Designing our moon rovers

Moon rover projects

I quite happily left the kids building and testing their moon rover designs for quite some time.  I set a 30 minute timer, and at the end I gathered them all together to test their moon rovers.

Testing our moon rovers

test your moon rover for durability

Unlike the previous projects this time we had some failures as I didn’t push things as carefully as they did in their testing.  But, it gave them a chance to go back and improve their moon rovers.  Which of course led to a happy afternoon of building LEGOS.

Come back tomorrow for our final Space Exploration Unit project, programming a robot.  For that we played a fun game, Robo Rally.

Curious about more astronomy ideas?  Then check out my astronomy pinterest board.  Or see the rest of this series at Space Exploration Unit.

Design a planetary moon rover challenge science STEM engineering astronomy

science 4th grade, astronomy, engineering

Comments

  1. Kylie says

    January 15, 2016 at 3:19 am

    Ok now that looks like it was cool fun and I bet they didn’t even realise it was part of school!

    Reply
    • Ticia says

      January 15, 2016 at 8:50 am

      It was a great way to sneak in some fun science.

  2. maryanne @ mama smiles says

    January 16, 2016 at 12:07 am

    What a fun engineering challenge!

    Reply
    • Ticia says

      January 17, 2016 at 8:13 am

      It was so much fun to see how they worked it out.

  3. Lucinda Leo says

    January 17, 2016 at 11:32 am

    Loving all these space projects. Your homeschool looks extra fun lately!

    Reply
    • Ticia says

      January 17, 2016 at 8:32 pm

      Thanks! It was a super fun unit.

  4. claire says

    January 18, 2016 at 12:50 am

    I love the testing aspect of these projects, and the fact they could go back and improve their design. Great science lessons!

    Reply
    • Ticia says

      January 19, 2016 at 7:43 am

      Thanks! I figure if we’re going to make these projects they should have some kind of guidelines.

  5. Natalie PlanetSmartyPants says

    January 18, 2016 at 4:28 pm

    I love how you gave them specific requirements to meet! I have to think more on that!

    Reply
    • Ticia says

      January 19, 2016 at 7:43 am

      It’s really helped for my kids to design projects that were more than just “Here’s my cool idea.”

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Ticia Adventures in Mommydom Hi, I'm Ticia! This is the adventures of my family in life and learning. Follow along with us as we share our adventures. We're having a lot of fun and learning as we go.

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