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Simple Pop-Up Mechanisms
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In this activity, learners construct three quick and simple mechanisms to start building a pop-up book. Learners fold, cut, and glue paper to make a bird beak, parallelogram, and V-fold.

How to Test The Strength of Shapes
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In this activity, learners explore the strength of different shapes. Fold paper into triangles, squares, and other shapes, then experiment with how much weight they can hold.

Building Bridges
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In this activity, learners explore the engineering design process and the basic mechanics behind building bridges as they build one themselves using gumdrops and toothpicks.

Newspaper Bridges
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In this activity, learners build bridges out of newspaper and tape to explore how structures are designed to bear loads.

File Card Bridges
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With two stacks of books and a few rolls of pennies, build two kinds of bridges--a beam span and an arch span--and see how much weight each of them can hold.

Gumdrop Dome
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In this engineering activity, learners construct sturdy geodesic structures out of gumdrops and toothpicks. Use this activity to explore engineering principles as well as sturdy shapes and triangles.

Paper Table
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In this design challenge activity, learners use tubes of newspaper to make a table that’s at least eight inches tall and strong enough to hold a heavy book!

Divide and Conquer: Santa's Dirty Socks
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This activity introduces the idea of "divide and conquer" using a fictitious but serious problem--a pair of dirty socks has accidentally been wrapped in one of the presents that Santa is about to deli

Apartment Buildings and More
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In this engineering activity, young learners investigate multi-level buildings.

Card Flip Magic: Error Detection & Correction
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This magic trick is based on how computers detect and correct data errors.

How Thick is Your Hair?
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In this activity on page 13 of the PDF, learners use a laser pointer (with known wavelength of light) to measure the thickness of a human hair.

Strengthen a Paper Bridge
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In this quick activity (page 1 of the PDF under SciGirls Activity: Tug O' War), learners will test how many pennies a flat paper index card bridging the gap between two stacks of books is able to supp

Building Tall
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In this engineering activity (page 2 of PDF), young learners investigate how a wide base can make a building more stable. Learners use blocks or boxes of different sizes to construct stable towers.

As Straight as a Pole
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In this engineering activity (page 3 of PDF), young learners investigate how a pole can be made stable by “planting” its base in the ground or adding supports to the base.