Cup Insulator!

Problem:

The problem we were trying to solve was to make an insulator to keep the liquid in the mug hot for as long as possible.

Process:

First, we each made a sketch of our ideas to solve the problem. Then, we shared our ideas with each other and took the ideas we thought are good and put them into one sketch, which was the design we made, and created a paper prototype of it. After carefully picking out the material, we made our insulator and tested it out by putting it on a mug, pouring hot water into it, and checking the temperature every 20 seconds. Afterwards, we recorded the start temperature, end temperature, and the decrease temperature on our sheet of paper.

 

This is a picture of my group working together and sharing our ideas.

Claim, Evidence, & Reasoning:

C- Plastic caps work the best for holding heat in from the top of the mug.

E- With the plastic cap tightly secured on the mug, the temperature of the water decreased by 8.8˚C in 10 minutes, but without, the temperature decreases by 20.9˚C. Also, even though the temperature of the water we started with the insulator was lower than the temperature of the water without the insulator (lower by 5.8˚C), the temperature we ended with the insulator (78.0˚C) was higher than the temperature  we ended without the insulator (71.7˚C).

R- This makes sense because there is no openings in the plastic cap we used, so heat would stay trapped in the mug. Before we settled on using a plastic cap, we thought about using a piece of fabric, but then, we realized that it wasn’t a good idea since it had tiny holes and openings in it, so heat would escape.

 

This is a picture of our final insulator being tested!

What are you proud of?

I am proud of the fact that my group worked very well together and discussed and shared our ideas with each other to make our insulator work better. We also separated work evenly among the three of us.

What are some limitations your group experienced in this design challenge?

A limitation my group experienced was the fact that the insulator had to not interfere with drinking. This was hard because we could not just cut a hole in our covering because then, heat would escape.