At Home with the Mad Scientist: 3-6 for September 2009

Build a Tent

Remember: Always have an adult help you with any experiment.

Materials

1. cardboard shoeboxes
2. thumbtacks or push pins
3. string
4. straws
5. scissors
6. wrapping paper tubes
7. broomsticks
8. tape
9. rope
10. sheets
11. shower curtain

Procedure

1. First you'll need to make sure you have a good tent design.
2. Start by building a tent model on top of a cardboard shoebox. You can use straws as tent poles.
3. Then stretch string over the poles and used thumbtacks to anchor the string to the box.
4. Test out a few different designs on your shoeboxes. Think about the size and shape you want your tent to be, how complicated it would be to set up, how portable it would be, and if it would have enough room to sleep in.
5. As you test different designs, remember that the tension on the string keeps the poles from falling and holds the tent together.

What's Going On?

Once you've chosen the best design, find the materials you need to build a full-scale tent based on your design model. If you're building your tent indoors, your materials don't need to be waterproof. We've listed a bunch of household items above that you might use for your tent.

If you build your tent outside, you might want to use different materials. Like, you might want to have plastic on the floor so your sleeping bags don't get damp - or you could use stakes instead of tape to hold the ropes in place.