Force and Motion

Design your own car with parts we provide you. You can use anything from gussets of different sizes, wheels, dowels and more. Devise a car with optimal abilities by trial and error. Test out your invention, adjust it, try again. The possibilities are endless! Test your car on different kinds of surfaces, ask questions, make observations, and further your invention.

Gravity and Friction, two forces we are always up against can be used to our advantage. Learn to put these forces to good use by building a car whose speed depends on weights, incline, and gravity. Can you design a car with the greatest potential energy? This is your opportunity to make predictions and record your hypotheses. Make your car unique by designing how it looks too.

The evolution of color engineering began 40,000 years ago when primitive artists expressed themselves in colors made from natural pigments. They tested their colors on different surfaces and mixed them to concoct more colors. When you combine the fun of playing with a spinning top and combine it with interchangeable patterns. Build a Benham’s disk top and learn how black and white spinning designs are processed by the three kinds of cones in your eye. Play with blending lights and making many colors out of three key ones.

Playfully experiment with a figure that tumbles down a slope. Decorate and experiment, test your acrobat with a friends, try variations and learn from trial and error while playing with this amusing project.

Build a water pump that honors Indian Educator, Arvind Gupta’s design. Learn how to engineer the optimal angles and speed to help this work at its best. Connect motion and transfer of energy to help you create a water pump that fans out water. Always fun on a hot day!

Assemble and decorate the wheels, axles, chassis and driver of a wooden downhill racer. Then experiment with your creation.. Measure the distance it travels from the end of its track on a ramp. Change the pitch of the track and measure again. A wonderful hands-on exploration of measurement, gravity, friction, and energy.

The Whitney Relay is a set of interconnectable parts that lets students master the art and science of energy transfer in the tradition of the Rube Goldberg Machine or its contemporary Japanese masterpiece: the Pythagoras Switch. Each student receives ramps,  marbles, blocks, and assorted parts to construct a chain reaction that could include your whole class. Thoughtful lessons in mechanics, invention and teamwork. 

The power of machines guides and eases work. The screws, threads, levers and pulleys of this machine organize effort into power you can feel. Students assemble interchangeable parts and invent a personality for their machine while experimenting with all Simple Machines and testing them first hand.

Understand electricity through the same experiments that early scientists used. Create an electromagnet and learn about how they work, what they are used for and how so many things we use require electromagnets to function. Wind a coil of wire and suspend a bar magnet in it. Charge the coil with a battery to spin the magnet and test polarity. Discover the origins of motors and test out the strength of your electromagnet.
 

A popular project that teaches game design (beginnings, middles and ends), logic (rewards for difficulty), marble movement (caroms, momentum) and creative design (good games must still attract players.) A rare exploration of the work of play. Use marbles, a launcher, hurdles, and more to devise and personalize your own Pinball Machine. Figure out your own rules, scoring, and goals. Play with friends, test, adjust and keep going.