4M have had a great Science Week.
We have designed and made our own vehicles using plywood, wooden dowel, wooden wheels, a hammer, a pencil, and coloured pencils.
'Design and Make a plywood vehicle and test its speed down various gradients using ramps, and its own momentum'
- Choose a basic shape from the following options - Landrover, SUV 4x4, Jeep, car, bubble car, bus, or coach
- Drill two holes near the base for the wheels
- Hand-Sand all components - use PPE - shirt/goggles/face mask
- Draw your windows, lights, indicators, back lights, and spare tyres - we discussed all the components needed on the vehicles, during the demonstration
- Don't forget to draw on the other side of your vehicle - your vehicle needs a left side (nearside) and a right side (offside)
- Colour your vehicle using thick coloured pencils that will work well on plywood - take care, be proud of your work
- Collect 4 wheels and two axles
- Use a hammer to hammer the axles into two wheels - watch the demonstration carefully and take care!
- Place your vehicle over the axles
- Use a hammer to hammer the final two wheels of the axles sticking out of your vehicle
Pupils were then asked to try their vehicles down the ramps that had been temporarily placed on the grey table - this gave them a great space to see how far their vehicles would go. Collectively the pupils, during trial and error, realised that if they increased the height of the ramp, the vehicles went faster! However, some of the taller vehicles became unsteady and fell over. Pupils learnt that when the height is increased, the speed of their vehicles increased. We also talked about the fact that the vehicles used momentum - All objects have mass, so if an object is moving, it has momentum. Pupils are familiar with this term as we have made wooden vehicles in the past in Design and Technology.
Pupils had fun racing each other's vehicles down the ramps and seeing how far they went. We did a lot of laughing and there was a lot of excitement!
During another afternoon, we watched some short films showing the Great British Soap Box Race, where contestants are asked to design and make a go-kart or similar vehicle that only uses pedal power or momentum to move down a racetrack that has a gradient. The pupils enjoyed watching the vehicles crash, but they also learnt about different shapes of vehicles, shapes and thicknesses of wheels and we discussed the best designs for pedal powered vehicles.
Here are some links to two soap box competitions - they include compilations of the funniest moments from 2017. We enjoyed watching them - they made us laugh and we learnt about wheels, momentum-based vehicles, and the effects of making a strong base with the right size and thickness of wheel.
We hope you like them as much as we did.
From 4M and the 4M staff team
4M Science Week
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