Eighth grade science students spent their first day back testing the strength of cement blocks they had created before leaving on break. Blocks were created using various cement “recipes” and various weighted metal washers were dropped through different lengths of PVC pipe to test their strength.
Students discovered that the concrete with straws, larger aggregate, and very little metal proved to be the strongest with this application. The original testing was done with 200g weights. Three groups’ blocks withstood the 200g mass dropped from 2 meters. Two groups’ blocks broke when the 1000g mass was dropped from a height of 2meters, so the fail point was 900g dropped from a height of 2 meters.
Check out the student’s in action in this video.
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