Straw-ctural Engineering

What

A drop-in session for curious children run as part of Open House 2018 for Engineer Here (at Here East).

Participants had the opportunity to build colourful miniature buildings and bridges out of plastic straws and paperclips, and then placing them on our huge map of East London to helps us crafterplan the Olympic Park Area and shape the London skyline!

The activity engages children of all ages to think about fundamental engineering concepts like tension and compression – allowing them to experiment with forces and load paths and be creative.

The act of making (and breaking) models enables kids to develop an intuitive understanding of structures through trial and error, finding out through play what works and what doesn’t.

Here are some tips and tricks on being a straw-ctural engineer (put together by Andy and Megan)

By asking the kids to place their buildings on a map of a real and familiar setting, we hope to have got them thinking about all the different parts that make up a city, and how the built environment shapes and influences the spaces that they live in and experience every day.