Design & Technologies
Building & Construction
Students tackle towers, bridges and a precision catapult using the full engineering design cycle: designing, building, testing against measurable criteria, and iterating to improve performance.
Year 5–6
90 min
up to 30 students
$490 + GST
What students will do
Students begin with a competitive cup tower challenge and earthquake test, then rebuild using reinforcing materials to investigate how structural support changes outcomes and identify which design decisions made towers stronger. They design and construct arch bridges, comparing arch geometries and reinforcement approaches, and test structural performance. The session closes with a catapult challenge: students design and build a lever-based launcher within a defined material kit, measure launch distance, analyse where the design fails and make iterative improvements. Each challenge uses measurable performance criteria (height, stability, distance) to drive design decisions.
Curriculum outcomes
Victorian Curriculum v2.0 content descriptions addressed in this session.
Apply a systematic engineering design process — design, build, test, evaluate, iterate — to a series of structural and mechanical challenges
Justify material and structural choices using evidence from testing, including earthquake resistance and bridge load capacity
Measure catapult performance against defined criteria, identify structural failure points, and implement evidence-based design improvements
Often booked alongside
Physical Sciences
Electricity
Students build working circuits, classify conductors and insulators, compare series and parallel configurations, and investigate how different energy sources (including hand-powered generators) produce electricity.
Physical Sciences
Light
Students investigate reflection, refraction and diffraction using mirrors, lenses and diffraction gratings, with laser beam demonstrations bringing the physics of light into sharp, visible focus.
Chemical Sciences
Reactive Chemistry
Students investigate reversible and irreversible chemical change through real reactions: a polymer reversal, a sealed reaction bag and a teacher-led Elephant's Toothpaste demonstration.
Bring Building & Construction to your school
Tell us your year levels and preferred dates. We'll confirm availability and bring everything with us.
Limited dates each term — one facilitator, one school per day.