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Parents To-Do: 5 Engineering Challenges For Kids

With schools closed and limited opportunities for outdoor activities, learning at home has become a challenge for parents all around the world. Helping combat the boredom, the James Dyson Foundation has 44 of the best science and engineering tasks to keep the mind ticking over during the isolation period.

Specifically designed by Dyson engineers for children, the Challenge Cards encourage inquisitive young minds to get excited about engineering. Here are the top five challenges to try out now.

5. Build a cardboard boat from scratch

Ever wondered how ships weighing thousands of tonnes stay afloat? Find out and put your design and invention skills to the test, making a boat from household items.

4. Make the Golden Gate Bridge out of spaghetti 

The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, USA is one of the most iconic structures ever built. Here's your chance to recreate it from nothing more than spaghetti. 

3. Race a balloon-powered car 

Using just a balloon, a plastic cup, straws, thread and rubber bands, get to grips with balloon-powered propulsion and make your own racing car.

2. Keep a marble rolling for a minute

Design your own run that can keep a marble rolling for at least a minute using nothing more than cardboard and sticky tape. See how Dyson engineers did the same using Dyson machine parts. 

1. Peer through your own homemade periscope 

Ever wanted to peer around corners without being seen? Get to grips with how mirrors and light can combine to make one of the oldest spying tools in the book – the periscope. 

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