Hey guys, welcome back to my blog! This post is about my latest project in Scimatics, the ultimate design challenge. In this project, the driving question depended on what you were building. Our driving question was “How can we design a house to have maximum surface area?”

Speaking of which, this project was done in partners. My partner was Hannah.

As you can tell by reading the driving question, the thing we chose to build was a house. We were aiming to have maximum surface area, in order to attract heat to keep anyone inside the house warm.

Here is what our house looked like:

These are the different shapes we used:

-Cylinder

-Triangular prism

-Rectangular prism

-Cube

-Hexagonal prism

-Octahedron

-Cone

-Dodecahedron 

-Pentagonal prism

-Sphere

Can you spot all of them?

Here are the calculations we made to calculate the surface area and volume:

Next, I’m going to talk about the Curricular Competencies.

Applying and Innovating: Contribute to care for self, others, community, and world through personal or collaborative approaches.

-All class time is used efficiently for learning without distractions.

I think I accomplished this competency. Near the end I dipped off and had to finish some work at home, but most of the time I was able to focus and work in class.

Reasoning and Analyzing: Model mathematics in contextualized experiences.

-A 3D object is designed using TinkerCad or other design software. The design is optimized for either maximum volume or maximum surface area. The design should include at least 10 basic 3D shapes. A model should also be build cooperatively for a group of 2.

I think I accomplished this competency because I managed to be successful in creating my object and designing it for maximum surface area. One thing I definitely could’ve done better was making it look good. It wasn’t exactly beautiful, but it got the job done.

Communicating and Representing: Explain and justify mathematical ideas and decisions

-The surface area and volume are measured, calculated, and compared for efficiency. There factors are explained in detail in a keynote presentation to the class.

I think I accomplished this competency. The shapes were all measured and calculated correctly, and explained while we were presenting. We put together the presentation nicely and included all the information, including the total volume, surface area, and ratio between the two.

 

And that wraps up this Scimatics project! See you in the next blog post!