Title
Grab
Description
Year 8 Modified Curriculum
Key Stage 3
Area Designing/Making
Objectives
To introduce the students to the problem a disabled person has reaching for an item that is out of reach a park keeper having to pick rubbish, the mechanic who drops a small component into a small space or the fruit picker who can't quite reach the apple all need a mechanical solution to their problem.
Equipment Required
Card, scissors, paper fasteners, stapler, rubber bands, springs, drawing pins and strips and pieces of timber and manufactured boards.
Richard Murray
Abbey Hill School Technology College
Plan
Discuss the problems those mentioned above have and how frustrating it is not being able to reach. The problem needs a mechanical solution.
The students should select which problem they will answer and make some sketches to work towards a solution.
The 'hand on a stick' will appear here unless they are warned and 'the magic button'. The solution to the problem should have notes or drawings or hidden detail describing how the grab works and not the answer you press the button and the hand gets hold without a description of HOW.
The sketches should be transferred to card which is stiff enough to work without tearing or deforming and holes punched and strings, rubber bands and staples etc. All could be pressed into service to get a working model. This can be used as a template for the real workpiece.
There will be some problems caused by transferring the card to thicker materials as the jaws will no longer oppose each other and adjustments will need to be made.
Locknuts, pulleys, triggers and so on will need to be shown to the group at some stage and a suitable handle will need to be made.
Once the project is completed it can be tested on a variety of objects or in circumstances that fulfil the original brief.
There will have been some changes in the design during construction and these should be noted in the students file.
