Build It: Invent New Structures and Contraptions

By Tammy Enz

If you like tinkering with widgets, wing nuts, gadgets, and gauges, you’ve picked up the right book. In Build It, you’ll invent a trash grabber, a newspaper fort, a coin sorter, and other amazing contraptions. When it comes to inventing, your imagination has no limits!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Capstone Young Readers
• Release date: May 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781496656537

Tammy Enz

Tammy Enz holds a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering and a master’s degree in journalism and mass communications. She teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville and has written dozens of books on science and engineering topics for young people.

Book preview

Invent It: Build It by Tammy Enz

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Building Solutions

Door Pulley

Newspaper Fort

Trash Grabber

Coin Sorter

Pet Waterer

Snack Raft

Egg Parachute

Toothpick Bridge

Glossary

Read More

Index

About the Author

Copyright

Back Cover

BUILDING SOLUTIONS

The world is full of wonderful, puzzling, everyday problems waiting to be solved. Inventing contraptions to solve those problems is what engineers do. But you don’t need to be an engineer to invent like one. Just look at the problems around you. Ask how you can solve them. Tinker with things you find laying around the house. Try using them in new ways to solve the problems. Be creative. The crazier your ideas, the more fun you will have. It’s time to start exploring your engineering genius.

THE SIX STEPS OF INVENTING

Engineers and inventors follow a certain method when inventing. This method helps them build on their successes and learn from their failures. Inventors call the method’s steps by different names, but the basics are always the same. Follow these six steps to see how inventing works:

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1: PROBLEM

Inventors usually start with a problem. Ask yourself—What problem am I trying to solve?

2: PRINCIPLE

Principles are basic rules or laws for how things work. Gravity is a principle that explains why a ball falls when you drop