The Tortoise, The Hare, and You!

Usain Bolt is unquestionably the fastest human alive, but how would he do if he had to compete against other species, like say a grizzly bear? In 2009 he broke the world record, running 100 meters in 9.58 seconds. That's faster than 10 m/s and around 38 km/h. This week we looked at some data on the maximum speeds of different animals and then tested our own local humans.

Most of us fell somewhere between a chicken and a pig.

Go Speedracer Go!

It's just amazing what you can learn using the Encyclopedia Britannica. In fact if you stack 4 or 5 of them, you can build a pretty cool ramp, great for exploring the concepts of motion. Get a couple of toy cars and you're ready to roll! Measure the length of the track, how long it takes each car to reach the bottom, and you've got everything you need to calculate their speed.

Physics: Crash!

This week we continued our studies of motion through 2 mini-experiments.  The first one was an investigation of how increasing the slope of a ramp affects a car's speed. We used the same set-up from last week, (toy cars, tracks, and encyclopedias), but for the grand finale we threw in some action figures, blocks at the bottom of the ramp to simulate a CRASH, and some optional string for seat belts.  The kids observed the motion of passengers, with and without seat belts, as the cars crashed into barriers,

In the second experiment the kids were challenged to build an air-powered car using a toy car, a straw, a balloon, and some tape.  Both experiments demonstrated Newton's Laws of Motion.  More on than next week.

SCIENCE TNKERS...Go Speedracer, Go!

It's just amazing what you can learn using the Encyclopedia Britannica. In fact if you stack 4 or 5 of them, you can build a pretty cool ramp, great for exploring the concepts of motion. Get a couple toy cars and you're ready to roll! Measure the length of the track, how long it takes each car to reach the bottom, and you've got everything you need to calculate their speed.

Physics: Stopping on a dime

This week the kids used their physics skills to solve an engineering problem: Say you want to build a new basketball court, how much room do you need, besides the court itself? To figure this out the kids collected data on their reaction time, running speed, and the distance you run past the finish line, as you try to slow down.

We decided to consider the slowest reaction time, the fastest speed, and the longest overshoot in order to come up with a safe and conservative estimate for the distance between the out-of-bounds line and other obstructions. The kids observed that most people can't stop on a dime, particularly not during a competitive sport like basketball, and based on our data suggested a minimum distance of 2.5 meters between the court and any walls or obstructions.