10 Engineering Challenges to do at Home

10 Engineering Challenges image collage with a boy and girl building towers from marshmallows and toothpicks, a rollercoaster, a bridge, elastic bands, colourful drinking straws, a wooden catapult and an Eiffel tower made from Jenga blocks All of the challenges can be completed using recycled household materials. So once you've got your challenge follow the instructions that we've added below, gather the materials you need and off you go!

To help you complete the challenge you should follow the Engineer's Design Process described below. Remember there is no right or wrong way to do these challenges - there are lots of ways. So experiment with materials you have in your house and with different ways of putting things together. And if at first you don't succeed, try again! But most of all Have Fun!!

We would love to see some photos or short videos of your completed challenges so upload your photos here.

Engineer's Design Process

Engineer's use a process when designing solutions to problems

Ask - what is the problem or what is it you are trying to make?

Imagine - brainstorm ideas for how you might go about your design, research how other people might have done or get inspiration from existing designs or even nature.

Plan - make a plan for how you will build and sketch some possible deigns

Create - use your chosen design to build

Improve- test your design to see if it does what you intended. Note any things that didn't work or could work better and see if you can find a way to improve them.

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Ready Aim Fire: Design and Build a Catapult Game | Enjoy the Ride - Design and Build a Rollercoaster or Marble Run | Scale New Heights! Build a Spaghetti Tower | Wooden Masterpieces: ReCreate a Famous World Structure using Jenga Blocks | Get Over It! Build a Straw Bridge | Float Your Boat. Make a Tin Foil Boat | Floating on Air : Made a CD Hovercraft | Windy City Tower : Design a Hurricane Proof Paper Tower | Race it : Design and Build a Rubber Band Powered Car | Slow It Down Engineering Challenge |

Ready Aim Fire: Design and Build a Catapult Game

The Challenge: Design a build a catapult using the materials below. Make a target from cardboard or paper or just draw a line on the ground to aim past. Place the target at least 5 feet away from your catapult and see if you can launch your projectile so that it hits the target. Even get your family to join in and make their own catapult and see whose will launch the farthest.

Suggested Materials List

Paper (for designing and brainstorming)
20 rubber bands
12 Popsicle sticks
1 Ping-Pong ball (if you don’t have a ping pong ball you can use squashed up pieces of paper to make a ball. You could fasten them with some rubber bands. Or you could use a marshmallow or a cheerio (just make sure to clean them up afterwards!!).

Build a prototype catapult and test it to see how far and high the projectile travels. If you don't hit the target redesign and try again.

Think about key design goals when designing a catapult? What angle should be used to launch an object the farthest?

For the target you could also create different coloured zones that are worth a different amount of points and see who gets the best score.

Rollercoaster or Marble Run Challenge : Image of marble run made from paper plates and straws with pictures of recycled materials you can use to make your own rollercoaster or marble run

Enjoy the Ride - Design and Build a Rollercoaster or Marble Run

The Challenge:Design a roller coaster track to carry a marble over a course that includes at least 1 hill, and 1 jump, and that drops the marble in a cup at the end of the ride.

OR Design a marble run with at least 8 slopes.

Suggested Materials:

Foam tube (cut in half this is ideal for making a roller coaster as it is really flexible), drinking straws, empty kitchen roll holders for tracks,

When creating your design you will need to create a track and supports for your track. You should also make sure that your marble doesn't fall out of the track on it's way round. And think about what you can do to give the marble enough momentum/speed to make it the whole way round the track and up any hills. Look at pictures of real rollercoasters to get some tips for your design. For extra difficulty you could try and include a loop in your rollercoaster.

Scale New Heights! Build a Spaghetti Tower

The Challenge: Build the tallest tower that you can using uncooked spaghetti and marshmallows. Then test the strength of your tower by placing a weight on top to see if can support the weight. You could use a small book or some coins in a paper cup or something else that you have to hand.

Materials Needed

20 unbroken pieces of uncooked, long pasta, such as spaghetti, linguine or fettuccini (alternatives: tooth picks or strong straws)
30 small marshmallows (or jelly sweets, plasticine or even blu-tack)
Measuring tape or ruler
Weights or a small book

Keep redesigning to see what you can do to strengthen your tower so it can support more weight. Look at using different shapes in your design.

Wooden Masterpieces: ReCreate a Famous World Structure using Jenga Blocks

Materials Needed:

Jenga or other wooden blocks. (You could alternatively use dominos or lego. Or you could even do it on Minecraft)

The Challenge:

Research famous buildings and structures and find one that you would like to re-create using whatever building materials you have in the house. There are lots of structures to provide inspiration like The Pyramids, The Eiffel Tower, the Taj Mahal and more.

Get Over It! Build a Straw Bridge.

The Challenge: Using tape and no more than 20 straws, design a bridge that can span a gap of at least 25 cm and support as many pennies as possible.

Materials:

something on which to balance each side of your bridge. (you could use some jenga blocks or pieces of wood or juice cartons that are the same size, or even 2 books)
a ruler or measuring tape
small coins or washers
1 roll tape
paper cup
20 straight (not flexible) drinking straws (if you only have flexible straws then simply cut off the bend end and you will be left with a straight straw)

Place the 2 sides 25 cm apart. This is long enough so that a single straw (about 20 cm) will not span the whole gap. If you’re using longer (or shorter) straws, adjust the gap to maintain the challenge. The gap between the 2 sides should be longer than your straw. When you have built your bridge, place a cup of top of it and see how many pennies it can hold before it breaks. Test different designs to see which is strongest.

Float Your Boat. Make a Tin Foil Boat

The Challenge: Design a Boat from Tin Foil that is strong enough to carry a passenger.

Materials:

some tin foil
a passenger (a lego minifigure, 2c coins or something else small that will fit in your boat)
a basin or sink filled with water

Tin foil is a light material. But it's flexible and waterproof. Experiment with different shapes that you can make with it and try out different designs to see which is the strongest.

Activity Hints and Resources

Floating on Air : Made a CD Hovercraft

The Challenge: Use a Balloon and a CD to make a "hovercraft" that will hover slightly above a surface and move by itself.

Materials Needed:

an old CD
a plastic bottle top
glue or masking tape
a balloon

Put a hole in the plastic bottle top and glue it to the CD over the centre. Then blow up a balloon and attach the neck of the balloon to the plastic lid. This is the trickiest part as it is quite hard to get the balloon over the lid - use a smaller lid if you have one. Twisting the balloon neck to keep the air in the balloon while you're doing this is also a good tip. Once you get the balloon on then untwist the neck and the air should flow through the hole in the bottle top and the CD and make it hover.

Test out different sized holes in the lid and test the hovercraft on different surfaces to see where it moves best. Build 2 hovercrafts and race them - you even could blow them with a hairdryer to make them go faster.

Windy City Tower : Design a Hurricane Proof Paper Tower

The Challenge: Skyscrapers and tall buildings need to be able to withstand high winds. So this challenge is to make a paper tower using just 3 sheets of paper that can hold a small weight at the top. The tower must be at least 9" or 23 cm high. Once you have your tower built use a hairdryer or fan to test it it will stay standing in the face of strong wind. Start with your tower 6 feet away and gradually move it closer. Try changing the speed on the fan/hairdryer too and see what happens.

Download Windy City Tower Challenge Tips — Downloadable Activity Sheet

Materials needed

3 sheets of paper
a measuring tape
a fan
6 feet of sellotape or masking tape.

Download the activity sheet created by DiscoverE.org for some tips and discussion on the challenge.

Race it : Design and Build a Rubber Band Powered Car

The Challenge: Build a car using basic materials from around the house and make it go using an elastic band.

Suggested Materials

plastic lids or cardboard circles for wheels
pencils, lollipop sticks, half of an empty juice carton for the chassis (the frame of the car)
skewers, straws or toothpicks for the axles
toothpick or cardboard for the tab on the rear axle
elastic band (or some loom bands joined together)

Once you have built your car using the design here as a basic guide, wind up the elastic band using the back wheels, then set it down and let it go.

Troubleshooting:

If your wheels spin but the car doesn't move then there may not be enough grip or friction between the wheel and the floor. Real cars have rubber wheels for this purpose. So you could try making the wheels less smooth (wrap a small elastic band around them or give them grooves like a real trye). You could also try adding some weight to the wheels by sticking blutack or playdough to them.

ALTERNITAVELY you could build your car from Lego bricks (using the same basic frame and design) but with lego wheels.

Slow It Down! Design an Aircraft that falls as Slowly as Possible

The Challenge: Design and build an aircraft that falls as slowly as possible before landing on a target. Once you have built your aircraft you must drop it from a height of 6 feet and it must land in a target area (a circle approx 1 metre wide) that you have marked on the floor. This video describes the challenge.

Air resistance — Watch this video from Science for Kids Educational Videos by Mocomi.

Materials:

5 sheets of paper (8.5x11 inch)
1 index card (3x5 inch)
4 paper clips
Scotch tape, Scissors
Sketch book
Timer

Things to think about: Engineers use air resistance or drag to slow falling things. Think about things in nature that fall slowly like feathers or dandelion seeds, like balloons or parachutes. Download this activity sheet for more tips on the challenge.

How might you fold your paper to slow its fall? How do the locations of the paper folds make a difference? Does your aircraft drop more slowly or quickly if it is designed to spin? How can you use paper clips to stabilize the falling aircraft's pathway into the target?