Designing a Ferris Wheel!

In Year 2, we have been learning about axles as part of our Design Technology. We were tasked with creating our very own Ferris Wheel, similar to the London Eye, which we have studied as part of our learning in Geography and English. We first explored different items that have wheels, such as bicycles, toy cars and trolleys. We then learnt all about the way in which wheels and axles work. We learnt that an axle is the bar that goes into the middle of a wheel, in order for a wheel to spin.

Our first job was designing our wheel, which had to have enough pods to hold 8-10 people in total. We had to consider the designs of the pods, to ensure people’s safety and we also had to think about how the pods would attach to the wheel. We thought about the strong materials that we could use to be able to hold up our entire piece.

This week, we started building! We worked with our table groups to carefully create our wheel, using lollypop sticks and tape. We used these because we thought they would be strong enough, and they would also stick together well. We then focused on our frame, where we used a triangular shape as we learnt that these are the strongest shapes. After this, we had to try to create folds so that it could stand on its own, even with the weight of the wheel! We then made holes for our axles to fit in, and tried to make sure that the wheel could spin. Some of us realised that we made the gaps too large so our wheel couldn’t spin as well as we had hoped! We know what we would change next time, and we will consider this when we analyse and evaluate our work.

We really enjoyed working together with our friends, and trying to find solutions to any of our problems. We also worked sensibly with the adults in the classroom, that we are very grateful to have!

What was your favourite part of this DT project?