Folding Matters

Student Worksheet:
Solar Panel Folding Challenge

 Engineering Teamwork and Planning
You are part of a team of engineers given the challenge of developing a solar panel that can be folded into a box for shipping to the international space station.  Your solar panel must be at 1 foot or about 30 cm, by 3 feet or about 90 cm in size when unfolded.  
 Research Phase
Read the materials provided to you by your teacher. If you have access to the internet, watch the video showing the planned folding of the James Webb Space Telescope at http://jwst.gsfc.nasa.gov/resources/JWSTSpacecraftDeployAnimation-longversion.mov. 

 Planning and Design Phase
You were given a range of items to build with.  Consider what materials you will need and in the box below draw your solar panel and include a parts list.

	
Materials you will need:

	

Folding Matters

Student Worksheet:
Solar Panel Folding Challenge

 Presentation Phase
Present your plan and drawing to the class, and consider the plans of other teams.  Be sure to watch what other teams are planning and consider the aspects of different designs that might be an improvement on your team's plan.  You may wish to fine tune your own design at this phase.

 Build it!  Test it!
Next build your solar panel and fold it.  You may share unused building materials with other teams, and trade materials too.  

 Presentation
Present your solar panel to the class and deploy it from the box.  You should be able to open your panel to the full size you originally built, with no tears in the foil.

 Reflection 
Complete the reflection questions below:

1. How similar was your original design to the actual solar panel your team built?

2. If you found you needed to make changes during the construction phase, describe why
your team decided to make revisions.

3. Which solar panel folding design of your class worked best?  Why?

4.  Do you think that this activity was more rewarding to do as a team, or would you have preferred to work alone on it? Why?  

5. If you could have used one additional material (tape, glue, wood sticks, foil -- as examples) which would you choose and why?