Title: Stem in a Shoebox: Can you beat gravity?
Description of activity: Children will experiment with the physics of a small car by replacing and/or adding different weighted plates on the cars. The children will then test the performance of their car by running it on our racetrack designed to challenge their creation through banking at extreme angles. They must alter the car to the right weight to ensure smooth and quick completion of the track. In this activity, the children learn about momentum, gravity, and how they can tangibly affect those forces. Depending on conditions including the weight of the car and the bank angle, the car will experience a centripetal force towards the inside of the track. The children learn how manipulation of these conditions affects the car’s ability to pass through the bank without flying off. Children will learn these principles by experimenting with the weight of their cars until the weight allows for the correct momentum to hold on the path of the track. The children will find that lighter cars with more momentum will run off the top of the track while heavier cars with less momentum will fall off the bottom of the track. The track is constructed with 3D printed parts for the banked curves and the rest with laser cut wood pieces. The car itself has a modular system of adding and removing small weights on a base that cannot be altered. In order to “start the race”, the user must place their design before two spinning rubber wheels that propel the car forward and hopefully, around the track. A further consideration would be to allow the children to replace wheels with different frictional coefficients thus altering the range of cars suitable to complete the track.