Toilet Paper Tube Sail Cars

My previous post on sail cars made it onto Pinterest (edited: I'm now on Pinterest!).  I feel so crafty though it was such a clunky car.  It was a really simple car to make on the fly and could be made out of things lying around the house (ie. a contact sol'n box).  It can also occupy kids' attention for some time.

I've been debating about my next lesson with the preschoolers at J's school.  I really want to do sail cars, but I'd have to make 12-15 of them (and make them look identical so we don't have 15 grumpy 2-3 yr olds).  The little voice in my head kept saying cafeteria milk cartons, but they aren't easy to come by if you don't have older kids in school.  I thought about it some more and played with what we had lying around the house.  Enter in my new sail car made from recycled materials that are plentiful: toilet paper tubes and empty tissue boxes.

I actually think this one works much better than the quick sail car I threw together in October.

Materials:

Toilet paper tube (or paper towel tube cut in 1/2 or 1/3)

Empty tissue box

Wooden dowel (I use skewer sticks with the tips cut off)

Popsicle stick (preferably a clean craft stick)

Scissors

Masking tape

Methods:

-Trace a circular object onto the tissue box cardboard (4 times) for the wheels***

-Cut out the 4 wheels

-Cut the two dowels 1/2 to 1 inch more than the diameter of the paper tube.

-Attach one wheel to each dowel (I press fit then masking tape it in place to the dowel) - make sure the wheels are straight.

-Single hole punch 4 holes for the axles - 2 in the front and 2 in the back (make the holes relatively straight across from each other and the front in line with the back holes).

-Insert wooden dowels in the holes and attach the other wheels (masking taping the wheels to the dowels if you so choose).

*Now you should have a car you can push around (even blow on the front of the tube to get it to move).  Test it to make sure your wheels are straight and the tube isn't touching the wheels.  You can also build a small cardboard ramp to let gravity drive the car.

Methods (cont):

-Cut out a sail shape from the tissue box.

-Attach sail to a popsicle stick via masking tape (tape front and back of sail to the popsicle stick).

-Carefully puncture the top of the tube with one pointy side of an opened pair of scissors.  I prefer the puncture to be perpendicular (90 deg) to the length. With only the top of the tube punctured, the sail won't be dragging on the floor slowing the car down.

-This new puncture should be just the right size to insert a popsicle stick.

-Reinforce mast with masking tape.

*Now blow on the sail and watch the car effortless glide across smooth surfaces (it still doesn't work well on carpet).

More fun activities with sail cars:

• Put your car on a long coffee table.  Can you give it enough power to drive over the edge?
• Navigate an obstacle course.
• Have a friend stand on the opposite side of the table.  Blow on opposite sides of the sail.  Watch the car go back and forth between you two.  Have a competition on who can get the car to fall off first.

***I used a compass this time around for wheel drawing, which was nice since I had a pin prick where the center of the circle was.  In turn, my wheels seem to turn better this time time than last when I think I used playdough containers as my circle guide.  Yay for being a little bit of a hoarder when it comes to old math tools.  I don't think I've used it since high school.

Related Posts:

• Sail cars with 2-3 yr olds 
• Sail cars out of a paper box 
• Balloon racers

Sail Cars with 2-3 yr olds

I did it! I had my first official Pepsi Refresh sponsored visit to a preschool!

I started with double this amount of special race cars!  Note-to-self, when speaking to 2-3 year olds, when you say you have a "special treat" for them, they think something yummy, not super cool race cars.  Whoops.

I started out with an introduction to the concept of gravity. We dropped some balls from way up high. They were able to guess that the balls will fall to the ground. Great hypothesizing! We talked about gravity keeping us on the ground and not letting us float up into the sky.  They happily repeated, "Gravity!"

I then thought it would be fun to see what they thought about what an untied balloon would do when dropped. Whoa! It didn't fall to the ground. It shot off like a rocket!  The kids giggled.  I then show them my balloon I have tied off and asked what they thought it would do if I let go.  They said go up to the sky.  However, it was just blown up with air and not helium, so it too dropped to the ground.  It was fun to see their wheels turning and get them making some educational guesses.

Ok, back to the non-edible "special treats".  I had pre-made the 18 vehicles the week before.  I hot-glued the wheels and only two kids' wheels fell off, one of the two was more interested in destruction than science.  It's all good - I'll count it as reverse engineering for now - still science.

We started with discussing what would happen if we let go of the cars on the ramps.  I had ramps of different sizes all across the room and tried to snap some pictures.  Man, these kids move quickly.  They quickly realize that the biggest ramp, held up by a bookshelf, was the best ramp for the fastest car!  Yay, they used their scientific process to figure that out because I didn't say.  The biggest ramp was the most popular by far.

On your marks, get set, go!

It was during the time we were playing with ramps that some teachers and kids from the older preschool rooms decided to peek in at our fun!  It looks like I might have to repeat this experiment with the 3-5 year olds too.  I don't mind.  It was tons of fun!

Back to the lesson: I then showed them that even when the cars aren't up high we can make them go.  I gave them all a sail (which I white-school-glued the night before and they all stayed together!) to put in their pre-punctured hole in the top of their car.  They tried it on the carpet first (which worked pretty well with the school-style, high traffic carpet)

A friend successfully moves his sail car 

This is another point where I love teaching science.  The 2-3 year old kids figured out the sail cars work better on the table than the carpet.  The whole experimented shifted to the tables.

Blowing on it like a candle

A race!

It's not working so well blowing down there

Yay, success!

Then they found out how to have real fun, blowing it off of the table!

And there it goes!

That was the basically the end of the lesson.  I let them have a few more minutes of free play with their science cars before I packed up the ramps.  This is the point where I could brainstorm about how to tweak the lesson for the next time.  They went back to the larger ramp, of course, but they wanted to make it taller.  It became taller and taller until it was basically vertical.  Then their cars were nose-diving into the ground!  I love letting kids experiment freely.  They thought it was pretty fun.

Try 1

Try 2

Almost captured the car mid-drop

Time for lesson - 10 minute set-up, 20 minute lesson!  I consider it a major success.  Keeping 2-3 year old kids' attention for 10 minutes is hard, and I had them most of the 20 minutes.  The kids all seemed to enjoy themselves and some kids wanted their parents to wait a little longer so they can finish their experiment (I did this in the late afternoon/pick-up time).

Lessons learned - don't use anything as ramps that would be of value.  Luckily, the ramps were recyclable cardboard and particle board scraps.  Thicker poster board would work well too.

I'm definitely pocketing sail cars for a future family science day.  Now to start thinking about the next lesson...

Related Post:

• How to make toilet paper tube sail cars

Sail cars

J was getting antsy and instead of letting him destroy the house, I decided to build him a quick sail car.

And then he played around with it, even naming it "Lightning McQueen."  My only guess for the name was due to how fast it went!  Here's a video demonstration.  Have your child blow as though they are blowing out candles on a birthday cake.

Main take away from lesson: for every action (blowing on the sail) there's an equal and opposite reaction (the car moves!).

Here's how you can make your own sail car out of recyclables.

Materials

• Cardboard box (non-corrugated) - I used an empty contact solution box
• 2 wooden skewers (for kabobs, or in our case, chocolate fountain dipping)
• Masking tape
• Scissors

Directions:

• Cut out the bottom of a box (keep it intact so you don't have to assemble a body of the car).
• With the remainder of the box, I cut a sail and 4 circular wheels (I used small playdough containers to trace my circles).
• Very carefully cut your skewers to a size where they'd make good axles for the car - cut off the pointy side too, for safety, while you are at it.
• With the pointy side of the skewer, puncture your circles in the middle of the circle (don't hole punch these - you want them to be a tight fit on the skewer so they roll/move with the axle).
• Attach one wheel to each circle.
• Single hole punch 4 holes for the axles - 2 in the front and 2 in the back (make the holes relatively straight across from each other).
• Insert the axles and attach the other wheels.
• Position your wheels so they aren't touching the side of the car (friction) or falling off of the axles.  You want them to be as straight as possible.
• Tape the ends of your axles, so your wheels don't pop off.
• With left over skewer parts (axle "rejects"), tape a piece of skewer to your sail and attach it to your car.  I found masking tape works best.
• Mark and X or put a sticker where you want your child to blow if they are having problems directing their sail car.

This to play around with

• Shape of the sail
• Direction of the sail
• Where to blow on the sail (use a mini fan if your child can't blow hard enough)
• Weight in car
• Weight of car (downsize if it's not working)
• Race your car(s) - who can go fastest/furthest with one blow?
• Navigate your car through a maze
• Decorate your sail car (not sciency, but keeps them out of trouble for a few more minutes and make it theirs)

I'd love to hear feedback of how your home sail car project went.

2 years of Nerdy Fun

WOW! I kept this up two years! I can't tell you how much fun we have as a family doing science.

My goal in 2011 was to blog once/week about science that is all around us (and not science through expensive kits). It's amazing what comes up when you have a curious kid! Basically everything can be related to science.

A look back, post from:
1 year ago
The beginning

Where we are today:
- From April through October 2012, I held monthly gatherings, Science Saturdays in the Park, at no cost for local families. Each had turn-outs of 20-30 people. I halted for the holidays and until the weather warms up a little more since I am a wuss when it comes to "cold" weather.
- I volunteered in a few preschools, bringing science to little kids. Their smiles and giggles are the best!
- The blog was featured in NBC Universal's parenting website, ivillage, for fun activities to do with young kids. They initially contacted me regarding the sail cars, but they ended up highlighting the balloon racers we did at our first science in the park day.
- I worked with a friend to get a super cute, official logo for Nerdy Science.
- I still work as a Research Engineer in the biomedical engineering field. I enjoy research.
- Point above is part of the reason I have yet to make the official website live. The blog is easy to do with little time and html experience.

Where I want to be a year from now:
- I want to be still blogging weekly about the wonderful scientific world around us.
- I want to continue Science Saturdays in the Park, hopefully starting back in February or March.
- As J grows, I want to establish worksheets, puzzles, and games that keep his mind active and help him learn new science and math concepts. These would be shared with my blog followers.
- I want to learn how to draw to help with the worksheets and activities listed above.
- I hope to have a website to go along with this blog.
- I hope to have time to join the bigger community of Mommy Bloggers. There's so much we can learn from each other.

Most popular posts to date:
- Balloon Racers in the Park
- Toilet Paper Tube Sail Cars
- The Scientific Method

Thanks for sticking with me!! It's fun to have nerdy friends.

What has been the favorite thing that you learned from Nerdy Science this year?

Turkey Sail Cars

We're not huge on celebrating Thanksgiving (despite J and I being Mayflower descendants). I feel like kind of a Thanksgiving scrooge (we're not cooking a feast this year).

To reduce the scroogey feeling, I really wanted to do something Thanksgiving themed for science. I decided to adapt the toilet paper sail cars into a turkeymobile by adding a turkey to the mast!

Turkey details:
I remember from my elementary school days turning hand prints into turkeys. I traced J's hands, and we cut them out in yellow, orange, and red. Originally, I was going to add half of a toilet paper tube on top for a head and use the handprints as feathers behind the head, but J was so excited to make his thumb the head of the turkey. We went with J's idea (I think it's ultimately easier). He even gave it an eye and a beak.

J and his turkey:

Action shot!

J wants to bring to to his Thanksgiving themed share day (think Show and Tell) coming up on Wednesday. Score!

Sail Cars: Preschool Preview

Here's some of my fleet

I have my first "official" visit to the classroom to J's preschool tomorrow, sponsored by Pepsi Refresh.  We're going to do a modified Toilet Paper Tube Sail Car.  I was able to purchase cheap little foam circles from RAFT, a nearby resource for teachers.  This saved me a few hours of drawing, cutting out, and balancing 72 small cardboard wheels.  I also hot glued the wheels to the stirrer straws (used instead of wooden dowels because they came with the foam wheels) in hopes there will be less tears and frustration in the classroom tomorrow.

So the plans for tomorrow:
*Discuss gravity and how it pull things up high down.
*Drop a few things from way up high.
*See if they can guess what will happen when I let go of a car on a ramp.
*Have them guess which ramps would make the cars go fastest.
*Pop in the sails and have the kids see who could blow them off the table first.
*If time, I have three balloon pumps and lots of balloons for crazy balloon rocket fun.

I'll check back in with how the 2-3 yr olds responded.  I'm excited!

Recyclable Racers

I can't tell you how many times a toilet paper tube has saved my sanity as a mom. Punching four holes with a simple hole punch and using a stirrer straw or a kabob skewer for axles takes 3 minutes max and can lead to hours of play. You can attach a balloon to a straw with a rubber band and then attach the straw to the recyclable via double sided masking tape. After blowing up the balloon, watch it race across your house, driveway, backyard, park, wherever! If your kid is too small for balloons, set up a cardboard box as a ramp and bring on the giggles. You can also add a sail to the car and watch the car move as your child blows on it. Sharing this knowledge was the goal of this month's Science Saturday.

We had a great turn out for our Science Saturday this month! We had it in a park with great sidewalks and access to sand (for weight), but unfortunately, we only one table to assemble things. It was crowded, but we sure had some fun. The goal was to learn about equal and opposite reactions, friction, and general engineering (tweaking your designs for better performance).

How to make your own recyclable racer:

1. Pick out a recyclable you think will make a great race car. I'm always fond of soda bottles. Water bottles nowadays are made with less plastic and are too squishy. I also wouldn't recommend aluminum cans since they are squishy and super light.

Tape standard straws to the bottom of the recyclable
Weigh down the car with washers or sand if necessary

2. Attach two pieces of a normal size drinking straw (small pieces are fine, think cut into 4ths or more) to the underside of your recyclable. This will hold your axles for the wheels, allowing them to move without friction. Note, in previous versions of balloon racers, I used an awl and pre-punched holes into the bottles. Using straws gives you a lot more freedom with adjustments (I hardly ever punch straight holes) and is safer all around (luckily, no battle wounds from before). You want the straw pieces to be parallel to each other and as straight as possible (perpendicular to the direction you'd like the car to move).

3. Stick your axles through the straws. We used stirrer straws for the little recyclables and kabob sticks for the bigger ones. I'd recommend chopping off the points of the skewers before giving to a small child.

4. For wheels, we pre-drilled holes into bottle caps, I made some circular corrugated cardboard wheels using a compass-like tool for cutting circles (affiliate link), and I bought some foam discs. Nobody chose the cardboard wheels. It was split pretty 50/50 on foam and bottle cap wheels.

5. Attach your wheels to the axles. I recommend that the wheels not touch the recyclable since friction will slow down your race car. At this point, you can glue them into place with a hot/warmish glue gun. Whether you use a press fit or you glue the wheels, the wheels should spin with your axle. Make sure the wheels are straight or your car might veer.

6. Attach a balloon to a straw with a rubber band. I found the bubble tea straws (affiliate link) work really well (we cut them into 3rds to reduce costs - though I linked to Amazon, I found these at our local BB&Beyond for $2). You can use a standard straw, but you have to walk the fine line between the rubber band being too tight and crushing the straw or not being tight enough and you can't blow up the balloon.

7. Tape the balloon to the car. I recommend a place where it can hang off the back and you don't have to keep taking it off and on to blow it up.

8. Blow up your balloon and pinch tight, or put your finger over the straw to block the air. Set your car down and let go of the balloon.

9. If your car flips, consider weighing it down (washers or sand do a great job). You can also switch what direction of your car is front (ie. flip the balloon around so it points from the opposite end of the racer).

10. Make adjustments and see if your car can go even faster!

I was able to pull out my camera for video of a few racers we had in the middle of the activity. Parents had to help the little ones blow up the balloons, but fun was had by all:

I think these racers went further than last years balloon racers!

Related Posts:

• Balloon Racers 2012
• Sail Cars

Next Science Saturday and Apologies

The next Science Saturday is this Saturday, August 24, 2013.

We'll be making race cars out of recyclables and learning about gravity and equal and opposite reactions. You can make balloon racers, sail cars, or figure out how to make your car run using forms of energy (elastic, potential, etc). It'll be tons of fun! Bring your own recyclable or use some of the ones we'll bring.

Email me using the link on the left <<, and I can give you detailed information of Science Saturday.

In other news, I apologize for taking a little bit of a blogging break. We still have been doing science at our house. I have two lessons half way composed. Hopefully, one of them will make it to the blog by the end of the week.

Rolobox: Car Wheels

I am at times an impulse shopper, especially if the item can be used towards many days of science fun. I was searching Amazon for cheap cardboard or reusable wheels that could be used with our sail/balloon cars. I did not find something compatible at first search, but I did find this product that seemed interesting: Rolobox Reuseable Wheel Kit for Boxes (affiliate link). It's just another tool we can add to our imagination and science play with boxes.

I like the minimal reusable packaging

I purchased Rolobox over the weekend and it arrived at my doorstep this afternoon, so we played a little bit after dinner. I'll admit that I didn't read the product description thoroughly before purchasing. The wheels are much larger than I expected. The wheels and axles are easy to assemble though parents should do the hole punching into the cardboard. Rolobox website shows a pencil for puncturing, but our shoe box needed scissors. Please use caution when cutting holes into cardboard (I am clumsy, which one reason I recommend hole punch + skewer sticks for axles when it comes to our toilet paper racers).

J and his new race car

Surprisingly, we had a shoebox handy (one that has outlasted the pair of shoes that came with them). I also thought a Cars box was pretty relevant for a (race) car science demonstration. It seems like it would work with tissue boxes and any corrugated cardboard box. 

Sciency things to do with makeshift car and Rolobox Wheels:

• Attach the wheels so you can put things in the box. How does the car move with different items in them? How does the car move when loaded down with rocks? How does the car move when loaded with tissues?
• How does the car roll on carpet vs. wood floor vs. linoleum/tile?
• Flip the box so the bottom of the box is the top of the car. Add a sail, balloon(s), or fan/motor(s). Can you get your car to move without pulling on the included string?
• Cut your car into a more aerodynamic shape (think "teardrop" or more like a triangle). Test it using gravity on a makeshift ramp (we use particle board as ramps) How does a more aerodynamic vehicle move in comparison to a boxy vehicle?

Now if only I could find reusable wheels small enough to attach to our toilet paper rolls (our most plentiful recyclable) that would also be light enough to move with simple kid power (blowing)...

Disclosure: I purchased Rolobox Wheels with my own money. Opinions are my own.

Official Rolobox Site and Rolobox's recommended place to purchase.