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Use engineering skills to design and build a device that will sink a Ping-Pong ball.
Apply the concept of density to explain why objects float or sink.

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For each student pair:

A beaker or plastic drinking glass filled with water
1 Ping-Pong ball
Interlocking plastic building pieces, such as Legos®
Ballast, such as aquarium gravel or modeling clay

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Read and familiarize yourself with the activity.

You may wish to complete the activity and keep a model of the apparatus you build. An elegant solution is a cage just large enough to hold the Ping-Pong ball and some gravel, and that includes gaps to allow water to replace the air inside the cage.

Collect the materials and set them out at work stations. Fill the beakers or plastic drinking glasses with water.

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Ask students to describe what engineers do. Discuss how engineers design solutions to problems, test and revise their solutions, and then enact those solutions with a new construction or process. Tasks for engineers include designing a bridge, inventing a new process for cleaning oil spills in the ocean, or developing touch-sensitive artificial skin for prosthetic limbs.
Tell students that today they will act as engineers to solve an unusual problem. Show students a water-filled beaker with a Ping-Pong ball floating in it. Tell students that their task is to build a device to sink the Ping-Pong ball to the bottom of the beaker, without breaking the ball.
Show students the materials that you have available for them. Discuss how the students could fit the ball in a cage and use gravel or clay to weigh it down. Remind students that an effective engineering solution is also cost-effective. Tell students to try to use only the amount of materials that are necessary to complete the task.
Divide students into pairs, and send each pair to a work station.
Circulate as students work to answer questions or provide hints as needed. If students discover that their first solution doesn’t work, tell them to learn from their effort and then revise and test another solution.
Ask students if they think an ideal cage has gaps or is airtight. Encourage them to test their responses.
When all groups have found a solution, reconvene the whole group.
Discuss the activity with these questions. Ask:a. Why is a cage with gaps more useful for today’s activity than an air-tight cage?(The gaps allow water to flow inside and replace the air. This makes the cage heavier and allows it to sink.)b. What property of the apparatus allows it to sink? Is it the mass, volume, or another property? (The property that allows it to sink is density, which is mass divided by volume. When the cage and its contents are denser than water, the cage will sink.)c. What real-life engineering problem might be related to today’s activity? (A submarine must be able to both sink and rise. So, designing a submarine is related to the task of sinking a Ping-Pong ball.)

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Sink the Ping-Pong Ball

Sink the Ping-Pong Ball

Sink the Ping-Pong Ball

Overview