Bouncy Ball Zoomin’ Car
Project Description
This is a highly interactive project intended for 10-12 year-olds. In this project, the student will create their own bouncy ball and car. They will complete a challenge in which they will start the car on a table from 4 feet away from the ball and knock it off so that after it bounces once, it will land in a basket 6 feet away. While getting hands-on building practice and a taste of chemistry/material science, they will learn the importance of collecting data and making small controlled changes to improve results. Moreover, they will learn about the principles of kinetic and potential energy, the importance of angles, and gain an intuition for forces like gravity, friction, and how objects interact to the force of another. This project requires the use of many common household products as well as borax which will mostly have to be purchased. This activity should take 1 day to complete.
*Disclaimer: While making the bouncy balls from scratch is great for learning, other options include bouncy ball kits that can be purchased or a store-bought bouncy ball to make the end goal of making a basket the whole focus to save time.
*Depending on the desired level of challenge, the student can either push the car or make it self-powered with rubber bands and/or balloons for the final car. However, it is still a valuable lesson for them to experiment with a self-powered car.
Step-By-Step Learning Goals
- Bouncy Ball
- This is where the students will work with chemistry and materials science. By adjusting the amount of borax is the solution, the students will have to try and figure out what bounce will give them the optimal results.
- Car
- This is where the students will work with potential and kinetic energy as well as hands on building. The students have to spin the car with rubber bands so that the potential energy stored up will be released to kinetic energy once the bouncy ball hits the car. The hands-on-building comes from the differing materials the students will have to put together to build the fastest most efficient car.
- Ramp
- This is where the students will work to learn about differing angles. Once the car comes down the ramp, the students will have to figure out what angles will most optimally accelerate the car in order to reach the basket. They will also learn about how the angle of the ramp as well as how the height of the ball’s release affects the car’s trajectory.
Materials Needed
- For ball
- Borax (1 box)
- Water (a few cups)
- Glue (1 bottle)
- Corn starch (1 box) (optional)
- Baking soda (1 box) (optional)
- Plastic/disposable cups and spoons for mixing (15)
- Note regular cups can be used but it may be hard to clean because of the glue
- Teaspoon, tablespoon, measuring cup for measuring (1)
- Car options
- Rubber bands (a handful)
- Balloons (1 or more if the child wants to try combining them)
- Cardboard (a cereal box or 2 is enough)
- Tape (a roll)
- pencils/pens ( about 2)
- CDs (4)
- Coins (4)
- Popsicle sticks (a box)
- Hot glue
- Thin wooden dowels
- Straws
- Soda caps (4)
- For ramp and basket options
- Cardboard (about a serial cereal box worth)
- Small garbage can/basket (1)
- Anything that can become a ring and taped to a wall (1)
- Other necessary items
- Table (1)
- scissors (1)
Objectives
What the students will learn from this activity are the ways various different science properties work together in the real world. From hands on building and experimentation, the students will explore the process of potential and kinetic energy, the importance of angles and forces, and chemistry and materials science.
Background
The activity will consist of building various components that end up working together as one obstacle course. The students will begin by creating a bouncy ball by experimenting with differing solutions of borax and cornstarch to create the most effective bouncy ball. Then the students will work to create a car that can be mixed and matched with different wheels and powered by rubber bands that will race down a ramp after being pushed by the bouncy ball. The car will then have to attempt to land in the bucket at the very end.
Introduction
Hello, masters of bounce, or simply, the MOB. I am Mr. Ball, your round friend. With these unprecedented times with the COVID-19, everyone is having to abide by social distancing norms. However, my good friend, Ms. Bucket, sometimes comes closer than 6 ft from me, and I need your help in keeping her away. You see, I have an idea, but I have no hands to do it, which is where the MOB (you) comes in. In a nutshell, what I thought of was to have us together as a team, make one of my bouncy ball friends, which we can deliver discreetly using a car, so that Ms. Bucket would not violate the norm and keep coming close to me. She’s been pretty lonely, and she’s looking for a ball friend to keep her company. I would like to keep it discreet since she sometimes goes overboard while being grateful, and knowing that she’s happy with her ball friend is all the gratification I need. (If we’re not discreet she might end up being obnoxious so watch out).
Now, to make this delivery discrete, there’s a few things we need to keep in mind. The first is that we can’t deliver the ball at high speeds or directly to her, since that will let her know we were involved in the delivery, and things will get loud, so we will need it to bounce before it gets to her. This must be done while following the norms of social distancing, so we shouldn’t be closer than 6 ft to Ms. Bucket. Thus, the challenge arises, we need to get the ball to bounce and travel 6 ft while being powered by a car you make. Are you with me?
Video Demo of Finished Activity:
Download Links for Procedures and Tips: