crayons

crayon – a stick of colored wax, charcoal, chalk or other material used for writing or drawing. There are also watercolor crayons, sometimes called water-soluble crayons.

It’s Engineering
How crayons are made (video) – shows all the steps that go into taking the wax and color for manufacturing crayons and putting them into the boxes. The boxes are shipped to stores for people to buy.

How might we

• what : use a soft cheap material, that doesn’t get all over, doesn’t dry out. won’t spill, comes in lots of bright colors
• for whom : kids (and grown ups too)
• to do/change : to draw pictures or write in bright colors to show everyone things we like, what we think and what we have to say

Engineering Ideas

• manufacturing – using machines and people to make something (crayons)
• process steps – many different things get done one thing at a time, then move on to the next person or machine for the next job to be done
• material – stuff that crayons are made of, and how to get them just right
• properties – color sticks to the paper – not too hard, not too soft, nice bright colors, don’t break too easily, don’t leave a mess on your hands
• Materials Engineer – properties, material, analysis, compare, scale, measure, test

Engineering Words

• manufacturing, transportation, mix, pigment, harden, mold, collate, pour, measure

Engineering Questions
Explore – What’s the problem?

• drawing and writing on paper

Examples – What can it do?

• solutions – crayons, pencils, markers, chalk

Engineering – How did they do that? How does it work?

• formulate crayon material – recipe for the wax and color ingredients
• manufacture crayons – many machines that each do a specific job to make the crayons and put them into the boxes

Learn more…

• Crazy Crayons! * Grade: 2 * Transfer to paper – Is the writing smooth or bumpy when you write on paper? * Vibrancy of color – Are the crayons bright or dull in color? * Color residue left on hands Does the crayon leave color on your hands? * Breakage on scale of 1-3 (3-breaks very easily with normal use, 2-breaks with some normal use 1-does not break with normal use) How easily are the crayons broken?