This week the Year 3 students participated in the first of our Lego Engineering lessons for this term. These lessons involve the students working together to build an everyday toy or structure using lego. This week the students  built their own spinning top.  The models were fantastic but the real magic occurred when we explored the forces behind why the spinner works. We learnt that the more momentum we give the spinner the longer it will spin provided it maintains its balance. We also learnt how gravity is a force working against the spinner staying up. Students experimented with different ways to increase the momentum of the spinning top such as by adding more weight, turning the launcher with more power and increasing the wingspan of the parts at the top of the spinner. Not all ideas worked straight away but sometimes we learn most from our failed experiments. We are looking forward to our next lego session next week.

Here are some of our groups in action …..