Paulo's Parachute Mission
EiE unit, A Long Way Down: Designing Parachutes
Paulo’s family is settling into a new home near the Alcantara Space Launch Pad in Brazil. Paulo’s parents—both aerospace engineers—will be helping to design parts of a spacecraft there.
Paulo is less than excited about the move, and resists making friends in his new town. Paulo is worried about what people in Alcantara might think about his hand deformity. When he meets Lucas, his persistent new neighbor, Paulo realizes that his plan to keep to himself might be more difficult than he initially thought. Avoiding Lucas becomes even more difficult when Paulo’s father sends the two boys on a mission to retrieve a capuaçu fruit to make into ice cream. It is on this trip that the boys encounter a problem—when they try to get the fruit down from the tree, it falls and cracks open on the ground. Paulo realizes he might be able to use aerospace engineering to bring the fruit down more gently and he ends up making a friend in the process.
After reading how Paulo and Lucas use the Engineering Design Process to create a parachute to solve their problem, students are challenged to design a parachute of their own with specific design criteria and constraints. With some creativity and knowledge of the engineering design process, everyone can engineer!
The A Long Way Down: Designing Parachutes unit has been specifically designed to accompany a science unit on astronomy or the Solar System.
