The SAIL Maths students at Mentone Girls' Grammar School participated in a Canstruction project with an Olympic theme. They brainstormed design ideas related to the 2012 London Olympics that incorporated the Olympic rings, medals, and podium. The students combined their individual designs into a collaborative plan featuring all three elements. They then worked to collect the necessary canned goods in specific brands and colors. On the day of construction, the students carefully built their design out of cans in the shape of rings, the word "LONDON," and a podium over the course of one day, finishing ahead of schedule. They added additional details like numbers and years before dismantling it to capture a timelapse video as part of the competition

1. Mentone Girls’ Grammar School
CANSTRUCTION REFLECTION
At Mentone Girls’ Grammar we have a program called SAIL.
Maths. SAIL. stands for Supporting Advanced and
Independent Learners. This program goes beyond their grade
level to challenge their minds and to achieve new standards.
With SAIL Maths the children work to pursue the potential of a
confident independent learner. Children will experience joy
and satisfaction with the problem solving tasks SAIL Maths
can provide them with. SAIL Maths comes together every
once a fortnight. The SAIL Maths students come out of class
time to do this extra curriculum. This year the SAIL Maths
students have got the opportunity to be a part of Canstruction.
From there the excitement began.
The Beginning of Our Journey
It all started when Mrs Mathers our SAIL teacher said “Girls we have to come up for
a design for the Canstruction project that I have entered you into.” Then she
explained the theme was “The Engineering Feats of the Olympics”. We were all very
excited but we had to get to work straight away. We searched up “London Olympics
2012” and the computers went crazy with pictures, at this point we thought it would
be impossible to choose only one design. For example some girls were saying “We
should do the Olympic Medals,” others were saying “Let‟s do the Olympic Rings” and
other people were saying “We should do the podium”... So we decided to do all of
them. Once we had decided on our design we had to decide on how we were going
to put it all together. So we all had to go home and draw up a design containing
those features. The next time we met up every one shared their design everyone
was slightly different but they were easily combined together so that‟s what we did.

2. First Discussions
When first discussing CANstruction we looked at the 10 golden rules we would have
to keep in mind when constructing time came; some things we thought about were,
the Olympic theme our construction would be based around, what coloured cans we
would need and how we would get them, where we would be placing our donations,
the structure, our safe work practices and lastly the animation we would make. We
also talked about the stages we would have to go through to create the best
construction possible. We were all extremely excited about the journey we would be
involved in through this competition and the difference we would be making at the
same time!
Can Collection
We needed some cans so Mrs.Mathers started to type out letters to everyone in the
Junior School. Each grade got given what they had to collect. Then we had to make
some announcements at assembly. Every day we went can collecting and collected
cans from every year level. The Year 4‟s donated the most cans which were the
Golden Circle Green Peas. The cans we needed were: John West Tuna, Coles
Coconut Cream, Coles Beetroot, TCC Coconut Milk, Golden Circle Green Peas,
Ardmona Crushed Tomatoes, Coles Tomatoes, and Heinz Spaghetti. Some people
brought in different brands but the same type. Instead of putting it to waste, we used
them for the centre and no one could notice them. We were only a couple short so
Mrs. Mathers kindly went out and bought some.
Building
On the 10th of September, we, the Year 5 SAIL Maths team, started constructing our
CANstruction. The day started off with us going over our design. First we marked
out the 3×3 meter square, using metre rulers and masking tape. To make perfect
rings, we divided into groups of 2, and created circle templates. We then placed our
templates inside the 3×3m square, and started stacking the cans. While some
students were making the rings, others were putting together the podium and the
word „LONDON‟. Half way through the day, we were finished with our constructing
but thinking that it looked a bit plain. With the extra tuna cans we made the word
„OLYMPICS‟ and added indents into our rings. The black ring had the number „1‟,
the blue ring had the number „2‟ and the red ring had the number „3‟. Also, the
yellow and green ring had „2012‟ on them. The yellow had the „20‟ and the green had
the „12‟. Sadly, we had to take everything apart to do the animation. Our animation
team took photos every 30 seconds, while the others put everything back together.
Amazingly, we finished constructing in one day!

3. Canstruction Animation and Building Team
Jasmine Baxter
Nikki Kong
Fiona Luo
Siena McGowan
Ashley Natsioulas
Hebe Best
Joey Fung
Madison Petherick
May Quach
Mariam Succar
Aaliya Lowe
Shayla Nguyen