Elevator up! This week, our eager innovators at Early Engineers learned about pulleys and tension by making these working K'nex Elevators!
An elevator is a mechanical device that is able to transport people or objects from one story of a building to another. Operated using a motor and a pulley system, an elevator pulls in rope that stretches all the way to the top floor around a pulley and all the way back down the elevator.
A pulley is a grooved wheel and line used to change the direction of force on the line. It is designed to decrease the amount of physical effort one must put into moving a heavy object like an elevator. We also learned about tension: the stretching or straining of a line. In most pulley systems tension is required: without it the machine would not function properly.
Our bold builders had a blast assembling these model elevators. Using yarn and our own self-made pulley system, our builders were able to raise and lower their elevators all the way to the top floor of their beautiful buildings!
We hope your engineer enjoyed this weeks creative construction: join us again next week, where we'll have an exciting sneak peak at this year's "Jurassic World" summer camp!
Photos:
