Don't Drop The Ball

Don't Drop The Ball

Luis Carbajal

No Dejes Caer la Pelota | ؜Don't Drop the Ball

Design Sprint

Prompt

In this exercise, students will work together to create a variety of obstacle courses to challenge their creative problem-solving and building skills to ensure the safety of a payload (ping-pong ball).

In this activity, you will create an obstacle course that must transport your ping-pong ball from point A to point B.

Materials: Lo-fi materials (paper, cardboard, tape, rubber bands, fasteners, wire, popsicle sticks, etc) and lo-fi tools (scissors, hot glue gun, box cutters, etc.) and ping pong balls.

Instructions

  1. Divide into teams of 2-4 students and randomly "pick out of the hat" TWO simple machines to incorporate into your obstacle course. 
  2. Learn more about each simple machine found in the resources tab.
  3. With your team, brainstorm multiple ways your obstacle could look like. Create detailed sketches of your concepts.
  4. Get feedback from your coaches and solidify your idea
  5. As a team, begin developing your obstacle course using low-fidelity prototyping materials provided by your teacher (e.g., paper, cardboard, tape, zip-ties, etc.).
  6. Go around the room and test all the obstacle course!

Your obstacle course should include the following:

    • Destination point A and point B, marked clearly on the course
    • The two simple machine mechanics that you randomly selected.
    • Objects that go through the obstacle course (e.g. a donut hole, or alternative like ping-pong ball, etc.)

Deliverables

  • An obstacle course that meets the needs above.
  • Photos, gifs, and videos of your obstacle course