Shade and Shelter Design Lab

A good shelter blocks rain, provides shade from the sun, and stands firm in wind. Different materials help with different needs.

Rain protection keeps you dry when water falls from above.

Sun shading blocks heat and glare on a sunny day.

Wind resistance keeps the shelter from blowing apart or letting cold air through.

Engineers must balance quality and cost. The best material is not always affordable. Finding the best design within a budget is a real engineering skill.

In this lab, each material costs between 1 and 5 tokens. Your total budget is 10 tokens for both the roof and the walls together.

Sometimes a mix of two mid-range materials outperforms a single expensive one.

Each protection score is from 1 to 5. Higher is better. The overall rating averages all three scores.

Excellent average of 4.0 or above.

Good average of 3.0 to 3.9.

Fair average of 2.0 to 2.9.

Poor average below 2.0.

Record multiple designs in the table to compare them fairly. Which design gives the most protection per token spent?

Try recording at least five different combinations before writing your conclusion. Look at both the cost column and the overall rating column together.

The best design is not always the most expensive one in the table.