Create a foldable football goal

Designing and making a foldable goal that could be transported to and used in Lunar football matches

In this activity learners will make use of the theme of football on the moon to design and make a model of a foldable goal for use in a Lunar league football game. They will consider the issues with playing football on the moon and transporting equipment to it. They will then design and make a model of a goal that could be folded into a tube for transport, then opened up and used.

This is one of a series of resources that are designed to allow learners to use the theme of football on the moon to develop their knowledge and skills in Design & Technology and Engineering. This resource focusses on learners designing and making a model of a foldable goal that could be transported to, and then used for a game of football on the moon.

The teacher will introduce the theme of playing football on the moon and the challenges that would be faced when doing this, before explaining the design brief and task ahead to design, make and test a model goal.

This activity can be simplified (particularly for less able students) by providing templates for the shape of the goals and/or pre-cutting the straws and string into required sizes.

As an extension students could organise a Lunar Football League with other groups in the school; design and make a model of a space rocket to get your goals to the moon and/or design foldable equipment for other sports, such as Rugby goals or a cricket sightscreen.

This activity is designed to take between 60-100 minutes.

Tools/resources required
Paper straws
Scissors
String (or wool)
Ruler
Pencils
A bamboo skewer or similar thin rod
Sticky tape
A cardboard tube (E.g. the inside of a cling-film/tin foil roll)
A small ball, such as a table tennis ball

The engineering context

Travelling and potentially living on the moon presents all sorts of challenges for engineers to overcome. For example, how will we breathe, how will we cope with much lower gravity, how will we play sports and keep fit?

Suggested learning outcomes

By the end of this free resource students will be able to understand the challenges of living and playing football on the moon; design and make a model of a foldable goal; and understand the function of different shapes of structure.

All activity sheets and supporting resources are free to download, and all the documents are fully editable, so you can tailor them to your students’ and your schools’ needs.

The activity sheet includes teacher notes, guidance, useful web links, and links (where appropriate) to the national curriculum in each of the four devolved UK nations; England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

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