Vroom! Engineering Race Cars

What a fantastic couple of days we have had.  Over the past few days, we have been working on a mini science unit on force.  We learned about the forces of drag, friction, and gravity and how they might be involved in designing a fast car that can go straight.  After doing a little research and discussing how the forces might work together, it was time to build our cars!  The students were able to decide how they could balance the weight of their cars and where they could use friction in their designs.  After some tinkering (otherwise known as redesigning in the engineering process), several students were able to make their cars go straight...and fast!

And the build begins! 

Testing the ability of our cars to travel straight and fast.

After a little redesign, another car has a straight ride.

And here's something great!  After the students completed their cars, they wanted to continue to redesign them in various ways, even working through recess to test them.