Can you Make a Chair out of Newspaper?

Whilst some of the children in Grades 3-5 were out of school competing in the Inter-Schools Athletics, the rest of the Grades 3-5 joined together to work on a fun problem solving activity. Supplied with only a small pile of newspapers and a roll of tape, they were set the challenge – ‘Can you design and make a chair that will support your weight?’

See a slideshow of us working on our project.

Take a closer look at the science behind this project and learn more about how we tackled this seemingly impossible structural task …

 

What Shapes help to make Structures Strong?

The project began with us exploring the question – ‘What shapes help to make structures strong?’

 

We started off by looking at photographs of man-made structures and identifying the shapes we could see.

Click on the image on the left. What shapes can you see in the photos?

We then investigated which shapes were strong by making different ones using plastic sticks and brass fasteners. We found out that a triangle shape was very strong and held its shape even when we pushed and pulled it in all directions. All the other shapes we made were weak at their joints and collapsed and didn’t keep their shape. We then tried using supports in different places to help to strengthen the joints. We noticed that the supports which made triangles shapes with the joints became strong, but those which made squares and rectangles were often still weak.

 

Designing and Making our Chairs

We then started our challenge to design and build a chair that would support our weight. We were a little worried about making it hold up our weight so we decided to try books first and then Monkey. We worked in small group of 2 -4. We had to work as a team and talk to each other about our ideas.

Here is how one group tackled the task:

“We talked about what we could do and used scrap paper to try out some ideas for the legs. We tried stuffing paper into a roll of paper but it wasn’t very strong.”

 

 

 

 

 

“We chose to roll up the newspaper to make the legs as this was stronger. We had to roll them up tightly and use tape to stick them. We measured the legs to make sure they were the same length.”

 

 

 

 

 

“We made a square frame for the seat and attached the legs to it with tape. At first it was fun and easy to make the legs. Then it got harder when we had to put all legs together and we had to work as a team and help each other.”

“Our chair kept on twisting and the legs wobbled about so we made more newspaper rolls to support them. We made triangles and crosses.”

 

 

 

 

 

“Then we made a seat. It was scary when we tested our chair to see if it would hold a book. We kept trying heavier books to see how strong our chair was. We were really happy when it didn’t collapse.”

 

 

 

“We made a back and made it and the seat comfy by screwing up paper and stuffing it under a smooth sheet.

At the end it was exiting to put it all together.

Finally we tested our chair by putting monkey onto it. We each sat on it and then we sat on it together.

We were surprised that we could both sit on it and it didn’t break”

“We used lots of newspaper and tape but it was lots of fun!”

 

 

All the other groups also enjoyed working on this project:

“We’ve worked really hard with this.”
“We’ve used lots of tape and lots of old newspaper.”
“Our hands became super duper sticky and very dirty!”
“After we’ve finished, we needed monkey to see if the chair was strong and it really worked!”

 

“Our chair is called ‘The support Chair’. It has 12 supports. If one of them drops the entire chair will start breaking.”
“If you look carefully at our chair you will see that there is lots of one shape and it’s a triangle.
“We had fun to do this project because it was like a kind of craft.”

 

“It was difficult and we had to work as a team.”

 

In building their newspaper chairs, the children experienced, first hand, the process of modeling and remodeling their ideas with the goal of improving their design. They made good use of triangles, connecting joints with diagonal supports that strengthened and stabilized the square shapes they started with. In addition, the newspaper tubes they used to build their chair were both strong and easy to make. Like triangles, tubes provide a great deal of strength. At the same time, they are much lighter than supports made of solid material. In evaluating their chairs and teamwork, each team commented on what they felt had gone well, and what they would change and improve on if they had the chance to build them again:

“We would keep the seat but make the legs stronger with more triangle supports.”

“The seat is narrow and we could make it bigger. We could add arms too.”

“We could put more padding in the seat and make the back higher.”

 

 

The Science of Structures – Tension and Compression

Tension and compression are the key forces explaining how structures stay up and why they fall down.

Try these experiments to help you to feel and understand the forces of tension and compression:

1. Stand face to face with a partner. Grab hands and gently lean away from each other. Describe what you feel, where you feel it, and what you think is causing the feeling. This pulling force is called tension.

2. This time, gently press your palms together at about shoulder height (as in a “high five”). Slowly lean into each other. Describe what you feel, where you feel it, and what you think is causing the feeling. This pushing force is called compression.

 

So how do the forces of tension and compression effect our newspaper chairs?

 

When we sit on our chair, the top half of the chair seat shortens in compression. The bottom half lengthens in tension.

The legs are squashed by a compression force.

 

Well done, everyone and great teamwork!