This document describes an activity where students will design, build, and race balloon cars. The goal is to use Newton's laws of motion. Students will work in groups to draw designs, make materials lists, and build their cars out of materials like balloons and tape. Cars will race down the classroom, and the farthest car or fastest car wins prizes. After, students will write an essay applying Newton's laws to how their car moved and discussing what they learned. They will be graded on creativity, participation, and completing required materials like designs, lists, and the essay.
Copyright:
Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
This document describes an activity where students will design, build, and race balloon cars. The goal is to use Newton's laws of motion. Students will work in groups to draw designs, make materials lists, and build their cars out of materials like balloons and tape. Cars will race down the classroom, and the farthest car or fastest car wins prizes. After, students will write an essay applying Newton's laws to how their car moved and discussing what they learned. They will be graded on creativity, participation, and completing required materials like designs, lists, and the essay.
This document describes an activity where students will design, build, and race balloon cars. The goal is to use Newton's laws of motion. Students will work in groups to draw designs, make materials lists, and build their cars out of materials like balloons and tape. Cars will race down the classroom, and the farthest car or fastest car wins prizes. After, students will write an essay applying Newton's laws to how their car moved and discussing what they learned. They will be graded on creativity, participation, and completing required materials like designs, lists, and the essay.
Copyright:
Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
This document describes an activity where students will design, build, and race balloon cars. The goal is to use Newton's laws of motion. Students will work in groups to draw designs, make materials lists, and build their cars out of materials like balloons and tape. Cars will race down the classroom, and the farthest car or fastest car wins prizes. After, students will write an essay applying Newton's laws to how their car moved and discussing what they learned. They will be graded on creativity, participation, and completing required materials like designs, lists, and the essay.
Copyright:
Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
Download as docx, pdf, or txt
You are on page 1/ 2
The Great Balloon Race
The purpose of this activity is to use Newton’s 3 laws of motion in a practical way. Your task is to design and build a balloon racer that can transverse the classroom, in the shortest amount of time possible. If the racer cannot make it to the other side of the room, the group who makes it the furthest will be the winner.
Prizes: 1st Place: 10 extra credit points 2nd Place: 8 extra credit points 3rd Place : 6 extra credit points 4th and 5th: 4 extra credit points
Planning/Building:. 1. Design your racer. Mr. Schwaller will show you the bare minimum that each racer must have. 2. You will need to draw a schematic of your design. Include views from the side and from the front. 3. Write up a materials list of what you will need to build your racer. The only materials provided for you will be 2 balloons, scotch tape, a straw, and scissors. Anything else your group wants will have to come from the group. Include in your materials list who is responsible for bringing each item. 4. Bring together all the materials that have been brought. If someone has not brought materials, make a note of it. 5. Build the racer. Each person should help in some way. One person working on the racer while everyone else stands around will hurt your grade.
Racing: 1. Each team will get at least one chance to run their racer. The one that goes the farthest wins. If more than one make it the entire length of the course, then whoever had the fastest time will be the winner.
Conclusion Essay: You will need to write an essay at the conclusion of this lab. It will be four paragraphs long. You must write how Newton’s three laws of motion affected your balloon racer. You should write one paragraph for each law, including a definition of the law, and 3-4 sentences explaining how it pertains to your racer. A fourth paragraph will be an overall conclusion to the project. How did you do, what would you do differently next time, and what did you learn from this experience?
This essay will be written during class, as an exam item. This means that you will have to write all 4 paragraphs in a testing situation. You are encouraged to write your essay ahead of time, gathering ideas and information along the way. This will help you prepare for this essay-style exam. It is up to you how much or how little you prepare. Keep in mind that you will not have access to your pre-written material during the classroom writing session.
The essay’s will be typed up on computer, and then e-mailed to me. You will need to know your username and password and have access to your e-mail account, so make sure this gets handled a head of time. Failure to do so will affect your grade. To test if you know how to get access to your school e-mail, try getting online between now and the date of the exam, and e-mail me a test e-mail. That way we will not have any problems the day of.
Grading: The project is worth 100 points total.
1. Creativity (25): how creative was your racer. A simple design with no thought put into it will receive nothing in this category. 2. Participation (25): What did you do to help? I’ll be monitoring your progress, and keeping track of who is working and who is not. Also, you will write an assessment of each person in your group and how they contributed. You will also assess yourself. Between all of that, a grade will be determined. 3. Required Materials (10 pts for schematic and materials list, 40 for the essay): This includes the schematic, material’s list, and essay (which will be done in class).
