Junior Crane Design Challenge Badge for Girl Scouts
Are you planning for the Junior Crane Design Challenge Badge with your troop? We have the perfect guide for you. Our troop was hesitant as Brownie Girl Scouts to try the mechanical engineer badges. Now as Junior Girl Scouts, these are some of the first badges that they gravitate towards and can’t wait to begin.
The Junior Design Challenge badges are wonderful STEM activities for Juniors. These activities will allow them a dive into mechanical engineering in a hands-on exploration. These are great badges to work on during the months when your weather is less than wonderful for outdoor activities.
What is a Crane?
A crane is a type of compound machine used to lift and lower materials or to move them from one place to another. Usually a crane has a rope with a hook to life the materials, a rope for controlling the lift or hosting, and cylinder or winch and to wind or unwind the rope to keep the rope from tangling.
Your crane will use a combination of simple machines and a few mechanical principles. The cranes in this guide uses the simple machines of a pully system and a lever. When looking at mechanical principles, your girls will need to learn more about stability so the crane doesn’t topple over, lift so that the crane can pick up the load, and the forces acting on the load.
Materials Needed for The Junior Girl Scout Crane Design Challenge Badge
When you can earn the Junior Crane Design Challenge Badge you will need a few basic materials that most of your girl scouts will have around their home. The meeting prior, or in an email to your parents, provide your scouts with the material list so each girl can bring their own materials to the meeting. This is the easiest and cheapest way to gather the materials and allows for some wonderful experimentation based on the different materials each girl brings. If you wish to control to materials, you can also purchase materials to keep things more consistent.
- Junior Crane Design Challenge Glossary provided in the Girl Scout Volunteer Toolkit for leaders
- Photos of simple machines provided in the Girl Scout Volunteer Toolkit for leaders
- Simple and compound machines which can include a rolling pin, screwdriver, door knob, bottle opener, can opener, scissors, pizza cutter
- Medium to large cardboard box (shoebox size or larger)
- Paper cup, plastic cups work also but are heavier
- Paper clips, we liked the larger size
- 3 pencils (at least 1 sharpened)
- Wooden spool (we used heavy duty thread on a spool)
- String (we used heavy duty thread on a spool but you could also use fishing line or kite string)
- 3 strips of corrugated cardboard 2in by 11in (corrugated cardboard has grooves in the middle, think cardboard shipping box)
- Extra cardboard
- Tape
- Coloring supplies
- Weights (you can use the extra paperclips, marbles, pennies, washers, small crayons, etc)
- Junior Crane Design Challenge badges
- You can also purchase the Junior Crane Design Challenge badge requirements
What are the Crane Design Challenge Junior Badge Requirements?
Junior Crane Design Challenge badge is perfect for Junior Girl Scouts to explore the world of mechanical engineering. This adventure is all about learning how simple machines work and the job of an engineer.
- Explore simple and compound machines
- Design and build a crane
- Test your crane
- Analyze and share your results
- Brainstorm ways to improve your design
Your troop will need to complete each step in the Junior Crane Design Challenge badge but will have some choice throughout the badge in the way that they choose to design, test, and analyze their results. Try to provide your girls as much choice as you can with as little guidance as possible. Allowing them to fail in the beginning is important to their success.
Key Vocabulary for the Junior Crane Design Challenge
As you begin the Junior Crane Design Challenge badge, you will want to introduce a few key concepts to your troop. We have found that it is best to introduce these words while exploring simple and compound machines so that the girls have the necessary vocabulary for when they begin their design. Try to introduce them as naturally as possible. However, if the scouts do not mention these ideas, then you may need to introduce them or ask leading questions to arrive at the words.
- Simple Machine: makes work easier by using less force or by applying push and pull forces in different directions.
- Compound Machine: two or more simple machines working together.
- Axle: a bar or spindle on which things can rotate.
- Force: strength or energy that creates movement (push and pull are two examples)
- Lever: a bar that pivots on a fulcrum, or pivot point, by applying pressure to one side to move an object or body on the other side.
- Potential Energy: energy stored in an object or body
- Kinetic Energy: makes an object or body move. Potential energy released.
- Pulley: a wheel and axle that moves an object or body by changing the direction of the push or pull.
- Prototype: a quick way to show others your ideas
6 Types of Simple Machines
- Lever: a bar that pivots on a fulcrum, or pivot point, by applying pressure to one side to move an object or body on the other side.
- Wheel and axle: a wheel that turns around a rod in the center to help objects or bodies move.
- Pulley: a wheel and axle that moves an object or body by changing the direction of the push or pull.
- Inclined Plane: an angled surface, or ramp, that helps to move an object or body up and down.
- Screw: an inclined plane wrapped in a spiral shape to convert a force that goes around to a force that goes up an down.
- Wedge: two inclined planes positioned back to back used to move objects or bodies further apart.
What Questions Can We Ask While Earning the Crane Design Challenge Junior Badge?
As you go introduce the Junior Crane Design Challenge, it is important to use questions to help guide the discussion without taking over the discussion from the scouts. Your scouts should do more talking than the adults.
- What is a crane?
- Where have you seen them before?
- How do they lift heavy objects (loads)?
- Why do we use cranes?
- What simple machines do you see in a crane?
- How does a crane use a lever?
- How does a crane use a pulley? Wheel and axle?
- What is gravity?
- How does a crane counteract the force of gravity?
- How will you keep your crane’s arm from breaking? How long should we make it?
- How will you keep the crane’s arm from being pulled to the side by the heavy object? (Supports will help to spread the force equally. Think symmetry.)
- How will you attach the arm to the crane?
- How will you turn the arm of the crane?
- How will you keep the cable (string, yarn, thread) from getting twisted up?
- How will you stabilize or balance your crane?
- How will you move the load up and down?
- How did your crane work? What would you change?
- What could you change so that you crane could hold more weight?
How to Explore Simple and Compound Machines?
Begin your exploration by bringing in examples or pictures of simple and compound machines. The Girl Scout Volunteer Toolkit has photos that you can print to share with your troop, but we find that our girls enjoyed holding and moving the simple and compound machines.
Examples of Simple and Compound Machines
If you are unsure of what simple and compound machines to bring, don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Our list below includes some easy to find simple and compound machines from around the house or your meeting place.
Levers: seesaw, stapler, wheelbarrow handles, broom, your own body, hammer head, crowbar
Wheel and Axle: door knob, screwdriver, steering wheel, bicycle wheel, pizza cutter, rolling pin, roller skate
Pulley: blinds, flag pole, elevator, garage door, some simple toys that raise and lower, fishing pole
Inclined Plane: ramps, hammer, dump truck, pyramids, slid, mailbox, standing picture frames
Screw: lightbulb, jar lid, bolts, bottle caps, faucets
Wedge: knife, fork, cheese grater, peeler, shovel, needle, saw
Compound Machine: nut cracker, scissors, egg beater, pencil sharpener,
Approximate Time: 15 minutes
Building Your Crane
When designing your crane, there are many steps in the process and each step can be completed in a variety of ways to provide your troop with variation in their crane designs. We love that our Junior Girl Scouts can each participate in the Crane Design Challenge a little differently and make the crane their own.
We began by building the body of the crane as this is the stability and balance to hold the crane steady. For this, you will want a cardboard box or other heavy object to stabilize your crane. We left the open flap on the bottom of the box and closed by did not tape shut. This is important to let the scouts add weight to their crane body if their arm is too heavy or long for the body.
Next, build the arm of the crane. The arm will sit on top of the body and raise high above the body of the crane. For the arm, we used two long strips of cardboard. Each girl will decide at which angle they want their arm to raise from their crane and how high. For this, simply cut the bottom of both pieces of cardboard so the arm is angled just how they want. We used duct tape to attach the arm to the body.
We placed a pencil through the bottom and top of the two pieces of the crane arm. This became part of supports for our cable. So the two sides of the arm only touch with the two pencils, one at the top and the other at the bottom. One of our girls wanted to use four pieces of cardboard, she overlapped two of them and placed a third pencil through the middle so that her crane’s arm could pivot.
Afterwards, you will need to prepare the hoist cable and reel. If you use heavy duty thread, this is fairly easy since the thread is already wound around the spool. You will only need to attach the thread spool to the body of the crane and run the thread under the bottom pencil and over the top pencil of your crane’s arm.
If you are working with a wooden spool and string, be sure to attach your string to your spool so it doesn’t pull all the string off. A simple knot works or a piece of tape works well. Then wind the string onto the spool, attach to the body of the crane and run the string under the bottom pencil and over the top pencil of your crane’s arm.
To attach the spool to the crane’s body, you can use some cardboard. We made two smaller pieces of cardboard and attached with tape, similar to the way we attached the arm of the crane. Then we put a pencil through the two pieces of cardboard with the spool on the pencil in the middle. Be sure to tape the pencil so that only the spool turns and not the pencil.
Approximate Time: 45 minutes
Test Your Crane for the Junior Crane Design Challenge
After your scouts have built a crane, they will want to test their design. Before the scouts can test the crane design, they will need to prepare for the test.
To prepare for testing, begin by tying a paperclip hook to the end of your string. Open the paperclip part way and bend the end to make a hook. The scouts will also need to make a handle on their cup. For this, open a paperclip and make an arch over the cup. We poked the ends through the paper cup and taped the edge of the paperclip to the cup to hold it steady.
Our girls began by using their crane to pick up the empty cup. When they felt confident with their design and their ability to use their crane, then they began to add weight to the paper cup. We began with paper clips for the same weight. Then we let our girls experiment with any other items they wanted. Most of them used pennies or crayons.
Allow your girls to run through a few different tests. If you notice any struggles, below we are including a guide of some common mistakes and fixes.
Crane Test Problem Solving
- Crane tips over: Add weight into your box by placing a heavy object or two inside the box to help stabilize the crane design.
- Crane arm sways from left to right: Stabilize the arm of the crane by adding more connection points or using stronger cardboard. You can add 2 or 3 pieces of cardboard to each piece of the arm for more stability. Another option is to add additional pencils to hold the arm more steady.
- Twisted Cable: Rewrap the string around the spool. Ensure the string goes under the bottom pencil before moving up the arm to the top pencil. Use the spool to wind and unwind the string.
- String breaks: Use a stronger string like fishing line or kite string.
- Cup Slips: Deepen the hook attached to the hoist cable. Be sure the hook curves back up to hold the cup in the middle of the hook and not on the edge.
Approximate Time: 30 minutes
Junior Crane Design Challenge Analyze and Share Results
Before testing your crane, ask your girls to create a way to share their results. Our girls made a simple table to write down the material used and how many items their crane could pick up. Our table had 3 columns: name, material, quantity.
Be sure to discuss with your Junior Girl Scouts what is a successful lift. Does the cup need to go all the way to the top of the crane or just an inch off the ground? Will they measure based on the top of the cup or the bottom of the cup? Once the troop has a consensus, that will help resolve disputes along the way. If they choose to use a measurement from the top or the ground, make a line on the crane body to show how high the cup needs to reach to count as successful.
After testing and recording, we took a few minutes to look at the results. We let the girls share what worked well, what they would want to change, why they believe something worked or did not work, and look for patterns in the data.
Approximate Time: 10 minutes
Brainstorm Ways to Improve Your Crane Design Challenge
Our girls were making changes to their crane throughout the testing process. They would notice something and trial ways to fix the issue throughout the time. When we were analyzing the results, the scouts jumped right to things they would change. So if you are short on time, testing, analyzing and brainstorming could all be done together.
After analyzing the results, our troop went back to their crane and actually made some of the changes to try something new and different. This was fun to watch and they were able to better articulate why they were making changes and what they were hoping to see as a result of their change.
Approximate Time: 20 minutes
Ending the Junior Crane Design Challenge Badge Meeting
After the final brainstorming and experimentation, bring the girls back to discuss what they learned. During this discussion, we did take time to address any misconceptions that lingered. We also encouraged the other Juniors to help explain why something worked or didn’t work. Go back to their results and brainstorming to discuss what worked, which ideas didn’t work, and ask about any additional questions the girls may have.
Take the time to ask if they have more questions. If you can, provide an answer. If not, record the question to discuss at the next meeting. You could even ask each girl to take home a question and see if they can find an answer to share at the next meeting. If there are lots of questions, every girl could even have two questions to answer. It’s okay to pair girls up on the same question too. This will give even more information for sharing.
Invite families for the last 10 minutes to take a look at each of the cranes and encourage the girls to share their crane, what it could do, and what they changed. Our families loved the little glimpse into the girls learning and watching their daughter’s engineering thinking. Plan for families to take short videos and lots of pictures of their daughter. You may even wish to have a microphone available or ask the girl who is presenting to stand up and step forward. If you have time, you could make a special backdrop for the photos.
Girl Scout Junior Badges That Pair Well with the Junior Crane Design Challenge Badge
Our troop loves to pair badges together so that our girls can accomplish more in the limited scouting time. While you build, test, and analyze a crane design, there are a few badges that pair well and flow nicely after this badge. Some of these badges are easier to pair than others, but it can also be helpful to chain the badges so you have your next few meetings planned, especially when requirements overlap.
Digital Photographer Junior Badge
The Junior Digital Photographer Badge is a wonderful complement to so many Junior Badges. While your girls will need to learn about using a digital camera prior to the meeting, they can definitely apply what they learn here. Our scouts love to take a ton of photos to document their meetings and adventures. You will need to make some time to allow the scouts to practice editing a few photos.
Then you can have your scouts create a digital photobook or photo board to use as they share their crane designs with their families. This is a great way to document their learning and inspire a love of Girl Scouting with families.
Scribe Junior Badge
While your scouts won’t complete the entire Junior Scribe Badge, they can complete one or two parts of this badge while working on the Junior Crane Design Challenge Badge. If you plan to ask your girls to share how they built their cranes at the end of the meeting, your girls could write a short article to share with their families to meet requirement 4. If they plan to share even more, they could write more of an essay to share their thoughts and feelings as well to meet requirement 5. You could even open the sharing with a simple poem about cranes to meet requirement 1.
We have found the splitting up the Scribe Junior badge over multiple meetings and badges helped our girls to earn this badge slowly over time.
Balloon Car Design Challenge
This badge is a natural next badge to try with your Junior Girl Scouts. In this badge, your scouts will design a balloon car and race them using the power of the balloon.
Paddle Boat Design Challenge
This is another great badge to focus on next. In this badge, your Junior Girl Scouts will design a paddle boat to use in water.
STEM Career Exploration
If your scouts love the engineering badges, this is another great extension badge. Completing this badge can be part of requirement one to explore your interests. Next, your girls will need to explore other STEM careers such as Computer Science, Food and Agriculture, Health and Wellness, Nature and the Environment, Creative Technology and Design, and Engineering. The Crane Design Challenge can help with Computer Science (if creating algorithms), Creative Technology and Design, and Engineering.
Your scouts should then learn more about the day to day job for at least one of these careers through an interview or questionnaire. Afterwards, your scouts will brainstorm next steps and share their goals, which can be short term or long term depending on your girls’ interests.
Programming Robots
While the Junior Programming Robots doesn’t directly overlap with the Junior Crane Design Challenge Badge, it is a nice extension. For programming robots, your Juniors will take their simple machine one step further by creating an algorithm, or set of steps for the robot to follow. If you plan to pair Designing Robots with building cranes, we suggest earning this badge first.
Designing Robots
This badge is all about designing a robot and creating a prototype, which could be your scouts cranes. Your scouts will first need to learn about the future of robotics and determine an algorithm that their crane could use. Then your Juniors will plan, build, and receive feedback on their robot or crane.
Showcasing Robots
If you plan to have families join you for the last 10 minutes for the girls to present their learning and cranes, you could easily meet these badge’s requirements. Your girls will need to present how they designed their robot and then learn more about robotic competitions, teams, and actual robots in action.
Connect with Us for More Great Girl Scout Tips
Our troop absolutely loves the Design Challenge Badges. We began them as Brownies on a whim and they fell in love with the hands-on engineering tasks. Now these are the first badges that they ask to complete and they can plan them out without much guidance. Hopefully your troop is just as excited to try out these engineering design challenges.
Looking for some support with Junior Girl Scout Journeys? We have simple guides for earning Junior Girl Scout journeys in a day or over multiple meetings. Check out Girl Scout Junior Guide on the Agent of Change Journey, Junior Outdoor Journey, and the aMUSE Junior Journey in a Day.
Leave a comment below and let us know if your troop build and testing their cranes. What worked well for you? What would you have tried differently? Did your girls love the Junior Crane Design Challenge as much as ours? Don’t miss our FREE Girl Scout Leader’s Campsite Guide to assist when planning your camping trip. And if you are looking for more Girl Scout leader tips, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter below.
Hi, I’m Nicole.
Here at Creatingbutterflies we provide families with practical solutions to real life problems for everything parenting, scouting, dual language, and enjoying time outdoors. We are a family of 6 with 4 wonderful becoming bilingual children who loves scouting, camping, and hiking with their family. Mom is an educator and dad is a firefighter/paramedic.
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