Friday, July 6, 2012

Lego Race Cars in the Park

Welcome to Nerdy Science Saturdays!

Look!  We're official, with a banner :-)
We spent Saturday morning building Lego race cars in the park.  We then sent them down some fiber boards (think heavy, smooth cardboard) we got cut in half at Home Depot.  I set the ramps at different heights and added a board to the landing strip of the last ramp.  The kids were able to experiment with how the cars reacted with different heights and different landing surfaces (we also had a ramp in the wood chips close by).


The kids sent their cars down the ramps.  The highest ramp with the board landing strip yielded the fastest car!


The kids figured it out all by themselves.  It's so fun to see them experiment.


The kids also added more/less Legos for weight to see how it affects the car's drive.  We also had some washers for weights too.  They were taped to the cars or enclosed using other Lego pieces.


We even got a drag racer.

We had a few tree cars too:



Friends hard at work with their creations:


The house car.


The test drive: it drove fairly well.


The Pepsi Refresh Grant is officially over.  However, I bought enough infrastructure items to keep Science Saturdays in the Park going about once a month for the rest of the year.  This month, we're most likely doing the last Saturday in July and making marble roller coasters.  To keep informed of Science Saturdays, please email me using the link over there <<, and I'll put you on the email list to tell you where we'll be and what we'll be doing.  We hope you can join us!

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3 comments:

  1. What fun! Wish I could bring my kids to your Science Saturdays; they would have a blast!

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  2. That's so fun! My daughter would love to be part of something like that.

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    Replies
    1. Hi Pepper. Thanks for stopping by. Are you guys in the Bay Area, CA? If so, shoot me an email (jessica at nerdyscience dot com), and I'll put you on the Science Saturday in the park email list.

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