Design And Technology In Year 4

This week in Year 4 we have begun our Design and Technology project for this half term which is: Mechanical Systems: Making a slingshot car.

We started off by exploring how people have used different modes of transportation over the years from horse and cart all the way up to cars as we know them today (even looking at electric and self driving cars). The design of cars has changed over time to include things such as a roof, windows and entertainment systems. 

We then looked at if we knew what air resistance was and determined that it plays a big part when looking at how cars move. Air resistance is responsible for slowing cars down. We then looked at our task which was to build and test a slingshot car.
In our first lesson we built the car chassis! This involved sticking together lollypop sticks to create two squares for the base of our car. The chassis needed to be very sturdy as it was the base for our car. We found that we had to add extra masking tape to secure our chassis. We then created our axels which was made of dowels and straws and then attached the wheels. This was then attached to our chassis. Lastly we added a launch mechanism using a paper clip attached to a lolly stick which went on the back of our car. 

In our next lesson, we discussed how we could design our car body. We choose some design criteria and looked at how we were going to attach the bodies to the car.  When then sketched our designs onto paper and drew what it would look like from a bird’s eye view, front view and side view.

Our last lesson saw us create our designs on card. We had to draw around the wheels to create our nets and also draw on tabs which would help secure the bodies to the car. We then cut them out and helped each other to assemble them onto the cars. 

Next week we will be testing and evaluating our cars by launching them on the playground. We’re going to see who’s car will travel the furthest before stopping! What did you enjoy most about our Design and Technology lessons this week?