September - Vol 70, No 1 - International Technology and ...

Brainstorm and Design
Prompt your students to think about how they can use
levers in their designs—to convert a small motion (like the
flick of a foot) into a large motion (like the end of the lever
flinging a Ping-Pong ball into the air). Have them identify a
goal—height, distance, or accuracy—then sketch out their
design ideas.
Build and Test
Provide materials and get students building. Have them
test their Pop Fly launchers as they go. Is the Ping-Pong ball
launching as high or as far as they’d like it to?
Share
Kids get a sense of their
own resourcefulness and
creativity by telling others
what they’ve achieved.
Encourage your students
to share their Pop Fly
designs and sketches
with each other and with
the world in the online
Design Squad Exchange.
The Wishes feature lets
kids share their ideas—or
wishes—for something
In the DS Xchange, kids can post their wishes and
help answer other kids’ wishes by sketching or
building prototypes, then sharing them at pbskids.
org/designsquad/exchange.
new, better, or different, and provides an opportunity for
them to work together to find solutions. Ideas are, after all,
the start of the engineering design process.
Swing Batter! A Real-World
Connection
Give your students a context for what they’ve learned by
showing them how levers are used in lots of everyday things
(pinball machine games, seesaws, and baseball bats, for
example). Show kids the D-Squad Pro File of Curtis Cruz
and Becky O’Hara, two engineers who make baseball bats
for Rawlings Sporting Goods.
Watch levers in action in Design Squad’s Moving Target episode, where teams build
indestructible, remote-controlled, flying football targets for Nerf toymaker Hasbro. Stream
it at pbskids.org/designsquad/season3.
Evaluate and Redesign
Have your students think about what works and what could work
better. Extend the challenge. How can they send the ball higher,
farther, or toward a target? Can they launch two balls at once?
In two-minute D-Squad Pro Files, kids see real engineers with diverse and creative
engineering careers. Download or stream videos at pbskids.org/designsquad/parentseducators/download_video.html.
Pop Fly corresponds to ITEEA’s STL content standards 1, 2, 9, 10, 11, and 12.