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A moving lego fish. Can we adapt to use with microbit?

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Can Dazzlinks be used for musical instruments?

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merge with Rob Ives moving creations?

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Electrify it with microbit
https://www.instagram.com/p/B-FSfYnBI5B/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

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Summary

Introduction

Is that a sailboat or a sail...car? Design and build a toy car powered by the wind in this fun engineering project!

This activity is not recommended for use as a science fair project. Good science fair projects have a stronger focus on controlling variables, taking accurate measurements, and analyzing data. To find a science fair project that is just right for you, browse our library of over 1,200 Science Fair Project Ideas or use the Topic Selection Wizard to get a personalized project recommendation.

Materials

Prep Work

Instructions

1. Cut out a piece of cardboard to form the body of your car.

2. Tape two straws to the bottom of your car, one at each end to form the axles. Make sure the straws are parallel.

3. Use the hobby knife to carefully poke a "+"-shaped hole in the center of each bottle cap.

4. Push a wooden skewer through the hole in one of the bottle caps.

5. Thread the other end of the skewer through one of the straws.

6. Push a bottle cap onto the end of the skewer opposite the first bottle cap. You just made an axle with two wheels!

7. Repeat steps 4 through 6 to make the other axle.

8. Make sure the axles can spin and the car can roll smoothly without getting stuck. If needed, adjust the wheels so they are not too wobbly.

9. Use the hobby knife to poke a small hole in the middle of the cardboard.

10. Insert a wooden skewer upright into the hole to form a mast. Secure it at the base with plenty of tape. If it is still too wobbly, you can build a diagonal support out of a piece of cardboard.

11. Cut out a shape for a sail from a piece of paper.

12. Poke the upright skewer through both ends of the sail to hold it in place.

13. Place your car in front of a fan, turn on the fan, and watch it go!

14. Experiment with your car. Can you change the design to make it faster?

What Happened?

When you turn on the fan, the moving air pushes on the car's sail. This causes the car to move forward. In order for the car to roll smoothly, the axles need to be parallel (aligned with each other) and the wheels need to be centered on the axles. If the axles are crooked or the wheels are off-center, they may get stuck as they spin.

Digging Deeper

This is a good project to demonstrate physics concepts like mass, forces, and friction. For example, what happens if you make the sail a different size or change its shape? A bigger sail will catch more moving air, which exerts a bigger push (force) on the car. You might think that means a bigger sail will always make the car go faster. However, a bigger sail is also heavier, and can be more difficult to support without the mast falling down. A sail that is too tall could even make the entire car so top-heavy that it tips over! You can also experiment with different materials for your wheels and axles. Are some easier to build? Do some spin more smoothly than others? There is no "right" answer and you will need to experiment to find out!

Ask an Expert

For Further Exploration

Put your fan on the floor in a hallway or a large room. Measure how far your car goes before it stops with different size and/or shape sails.

If you have a stopwatch, measure how fast your car can go over a certain distance with different size and/or shape sails.

Project Ideas

Science Fair Project Idea

Do you think you could build a car powered by nothing but air? A balloon-powered car is pushed forward by air escaping from a balloon, and it is fun and easy to build with materials you already have around your house. Can you imagine how you would want your own balloon-powered car to look? Can you design a car that will travel as far as possible? You can even measure your car's speed using your smartphone and a special sensor app. Get ready to grab some simple supplies to bring your idea to... Read more

Careers

Explore Our Science Videos

Make 3D Printed Optical Illusions

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Build a Wind-Powered Car | STEM Activity

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Build a wind-powered car in this fun engineering project.

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My boys recently got some hex bugs, and they are so much fun! Aidan had one when he was younger, but somehow the other boys missed out on having one. Jonathan asked for one for his 6th birthday, and declared the $6 hex bug to be his favorite present, above a $40 LEGO set! (Hmm...)

Creating a maze for a hex bug is such a fun STEM challenge for kids. There are some engineering considerations - what pathway design will keep the hex bug from getting stuck? Can we create a maze with more than one possible path? Will the hex bug always go the same way, or will he go multiple different ways?

So much fun! We all loved this activity.
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. In addition, text links to merchants in this post are affiliate links, which means that if you buy something through a link, I will earn a small percentage of the sale at no additional cost to you. Here's what you need for this hex bug STEM challenge:
First, make sure that the bottom of your box is flat, or the hex bug will get stuck on the flaps. I cut a piece of cardboard from the box lid to fit in that space. Then I taped it down with clear mailing tape.

Then start building your maze! Hot glue will hold the craft sticks quite securely.

Here's our completed maze in action! We all had so much fun watching the hex bugs "explore" their new maze!

The tunnels were especially fun. Our hex bugs did choose all different routes through the maze!

And when we're done with this toy, we can stick it in the recycling bin rather than having another plastic toy to have to store. That's always a win!
More Building/Tinkering STEM Projects:

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Design Your Own Hex Bug Playground - Frugal Fun For Boys and Girls

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My boys recently got some hex bugs, and they are so much fun! Aidan had one when he was younger, but somehow the other boys missed out on having one. Jonathan asked for one for his 6th birthday, and declared the $6 hex bug to be his favorite present, above a $40 LEGO set!

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Cardboard Geodesic Dome: This tutorial will show you how to build a small geodesic dome out of cardboard. I originally made mine for my cat, but you can use the principles in this tutorial to scale this up or down to fit your needs. This took about 5 hours.

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Make a windmill model at home and hold an engineering study with children! With a printable template, building your own toy windmill is a quick and easy STEM activity.

Windmills are fascinating machines, both aesthetically and technologically. For centuries, they have been used for converting energy from the wind into useful work - grinding, lifting, pumping and, nowadays, generating electricity.

How does it work? The wind turns the blades of windmills, and as they rotate on the axle, it makes the gears and cogs inside of the windmill turn. In a windmill used for making flour, this turns the grinding stones. In a windmill used for pumping water, turning the axle moves a piston or a screw. In a windmill used for generating power, the drive shaft is connected through many gears to a generator that produces electricity. While being such a versatile and amazing machine, a model windmill is quite easy to build, especially if you have a printable pattern.

Now, what's in it for kids?

Making a craft that actually moves is sure to entertain even the youngest of kids, and with the help of a household fan, our windmill flew. Even our toddler was excited, "We've got a windmill in the house! Now, what dolly can I put inside?"

A windmill is interesting to study as one one of the simple machines - it demonstrates the principle of a wheel and axle mechanism.

Experimenting with the blades presents a good opportunity for a little scientific study. How does the number of blades affect the speed of rotation? How does the pitch? And the distance from the fan? You'll find our conclusion in the end of the post.

Also Try

Explore nature with 10 printable STEAM projects for children! They will learn about nature while playing games, completing engineering challenges, going on scavenger hunts, and making art with natural materials.

You will need:

a piece of foam board (you can use cardboard instead, but foam board offers flat surfaces for gluing designs on and clean edges when cutting)

7 bamboo skewers

our printable design (there is a coloured version that we built, and also a black-and-white version for colouring!)

hobby knife & ruler

glue stick & hot glue gun

Approximate time for building one windmill: 30 minutes.

1 - Print the images and glue to the foam board using a glue stick - or whatever form of appropriate glue you have on hand.

2 - Once the glue has set, cut the foam board using a sharp knife, as marked on the pages of the pattern. If you use a sharp knife and a ruler, as shown in the video, it goes very quickly.

3 - Assemble the building portion of the windmill - front, back, two sides and the roof - with hot glue.

4 - Poke the marked holes for the axle through the hub, front bearing and the back side of the windmill.

5 - Hot glue the front bearing bracket to the front of the windmill, then hot glue the front bearing to it.

6 - Use a bamboo skewer as an axle. Hot glue the hub and its three support brackets to it.

7 - Poke the pointy ends of 6 bamboo skewers into the inner ends of the fan blades and cut off all but 1-1/4″ of the protruding skewers.

8 - Sharpen the protruding skewer ends with a knife, then drive them into the hub at the points marked along its edge. The blades are not glued into the hub, so that their number and pitch can be experimented with. Once you have arrived at the ideal number and pitch, you may decide to glue them in place.

Once you've built the windmill, you can make some experiments on performance with the blades using a household fan as a wind source.

How much difference does the number of blades make? Or the angle that blades are pitched at? Or the distance from the fan?

We created a table for conducting the experiment and counted how many times the windmill would turn in half a minute, after we made adjustments to the the blades. To make counting easier, you might want to colour one of the blades with marker on the back.

According to our experiment, adjusting the pitch of the blades make more difference than the number of blades did. Fascinating! Before, I would have guessed the opposite. Here is another short video of us adjusting the blades.

Aside from the coloured version, our tutorial includes a template that children can colour themselves. If you do make a coloured windmill, please, share it with us! We'd love to see it.

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How to Make a Windmill Model with a Printable Pattern | Adventure in a Box

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Make a windmill model at home and hold an engineering study with children! With a printable template, building your own toy windmill is a quick and easy STEM activity. Windmills are fascinating machines, both aesthetically and technologically. For centuries, they have been used for converting energy from the wind into useful work - grinding, lifting, pumping and, nowadays, generating electricity.

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Wave your flag high! The TeacherGeek Flag Waver Activity is an excellent introduction to TeacherGeek construction techniques and components. By combining gears,...

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Wave your flag high! The TeacherGeek Flag Waver Activity is an excellent introduction to TeacherGeek construction techniques and components. By combining gears,...

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Searching for an attractive activity? Look no further! The Electromagnet Crane 2.0 Activity Pack has aspiring engineers learning the low-down on magnetism and linkages as they create and operate their very own electromagnet crane!

Power up the battery magnet and hoist, grab, sort, then build it all over again to complete new challenges. The TeacherGeek build system makes it easy and fun to construct new crane designs, meaning kids will be more excited than ever to get back to the drawing board!

Each Electromagnet Crane 2.0 Activity Pack comes with a Go Guide to help students get started, culminating in a challenge that'll put their designs to the test. TeacherGeek even offers free downloadable science labs and engineering challenges sure to get students amped to take their cranes to the next level!

Click here to go to the original Electromagnet Crane page! (You're in the wrong place.)

You're in the right place! Scroll down to find documents and videos.

Customize this activity for the highlighted ages with tons of free labs and challenges!

This is an educational product and not a toy. Adult supervision is required.

Go Guide:

Give it to your students and go! This is the essential document to get students started with constructing your Electromagnet Crane 2.0, culminating in the Space Mining Challenge.

Labs:

Challenges:

Space Mining Challenge:

This challenge is embedded right in the Go Guide! You don't need to download any extra documents.

Available at two different learning levels, TeacherGeek Engineering Notebooks are designed to help students cycle through the Design & Engineering Process and help them innovate and invent new designs. Use an Engineering Notebook page for each iteration of design. We recommend keeping extra copies of this on-hand for kids during activities.

Other Resources:

Available at two different learning levels, TeacherGeek Engineering Notebooks are designed to help students cycle through the Design & Engineering Process and help them innovate and invent new designs. Use an Engineering Notebook page for each iteration of design. We recommend keeping extra copies of this on-hand for kids during activities.

TeacherGeek Tools

Drive screws into holes.

Other Supplies

AA Battery (To power your electromagnet)

Bowl

Aluminum Foil (optional)

Any two of: rice, beans, small candies, crumpled paper

Tape

Recycling Bin Materials (optional - to incorporate into your design)

You will need to pre-cut the dowels for this activity, or your kids can cut them (with adult supervision).
TeacherGeek Tools

Drive screws into holes.

Other Supplies

Aluminum Wire Roll (if you purchased your Maker Cart before summer 2021)

AA Battery (To power your electromagnet)

Bowl

Aluminum Foil (optional)

Any two of: rice, beans, small candies, crumpled paper

Tape

Recycling Bin Materials (optional - to incorporate into your design)

Make sure you have the right components - check the Go Guide (see above). You will need to pre-cut the dowels for this activity, or your kids can cut them (with adult supervision).
TeacherGeek Tools

Drive screws into holes.

Other Supplies

AA Battery (To power your electromagnet)

Bowl

Aluminum Foil (optional)

Any two of: rice, beans, small candies, crumpled paper

Tape

Recycling Bin Materials (optional - to incorporate into your design)

What comes with the Electromagnet Crane 2.0?

The table shows what comes in each single kit. To see what comes in a 10-pack, just multiply by 10.

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Searching for an attractive activity? Look no further! Kids design and build their very own Electromagnet Crane, experimenting with the magnet coil, crane linkages, and more as they refine their designs and compete in free optional challenges and labs. Designed by real teachers and aligned to educational standards.

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PowerPoint that goes with the Cardboard chair project. Includes examples of cardboard chairs and discusses cardboard as a building material.

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3... 2... 1... GO! Levers swing forward as cars race down the hall, converting the energy stored in the mousetrap to the motion of the vehicle. Kids design their cars for speed, distance, or to stop on a target - the Mousetrap Vehicle activity pack comes with tons of components (and a reamer tool) to engineer your own unique racer designs.

The included Go Guide will get kids started making a frame, then tinkering with mousetrap position, levers, friction, and more. Optional labs and engineering challenges connect science to engineering while guiding inquiry and inspiring creativity. Are you ready to build a better mousetrap... vehicle?

Click here to go to the original Mousetrap Vehicle page! (You're in the wrong place.)

You're in the right place! Scroll down to find documents and videos.

Customize this activity for the highlighted ages with tons of free labs and challenges!

This is an educational product and not a toy. Adult supervision is required.

Want an activity for younger kids? Check out the Rubber Band Racer!

Go Guide:

Give it to your students and go! This is the essential document to get students started with constructing a Mousetrap Vehicle, culminating in the Long Shot Challenge.

Labs:

Experiment with lever lengths and positions to see which works best for different challenges. Ages 12+.

Challenges:

Long Shot Challenge:
This challenge is embedded right in the Go Guide! You don't need to download any extra documents.

Available at two different learning levels, TeacherGeek Engineering Notebooks are designed to help students cycle through the Design & Engineering Process and help them innovate and invent new designs. Use an Engineering Notebook page for each iteration of design. We recommend keeping extra copies of this on-hand for kids during activities.

Other Resources:

Available at two different learning levels, TeacherGeek Engineering Notebooks are designed to help students cycle through the Design & Engineering Process and help them innovate and invent new designs. Use an Engineering Notebook page for each iteration of design. We recommend keeping extra copies of this on-hand for kids during activities.

TeacherGeek Tools

Drive screws into holes.

Other Supplies

Scissors (to cut string)

Recycling Bin Materials (optional - to incorporate into your design)

You will need to pre-cut the dowels for this activity, or your kids can cut them (with adult supervision).
TeacherGeek Tools

Drive screws into holes.

Other Supplies

Aluminum Wire Roll (if you purchased your Maker Cart before summer 2021)

Mouse Trap

Recycling Bin Materials (optional - to incorporate into your design)

Make sure you have the right components - check the Go Guide (see above). You will need to pre-cut the dowels for this activity, or your kids can cut them (with adult supervision).
TeacherGeek Tools

Drive screws into holes.

Other Supplies

Scissors (to cut string)

Recycling Bin Materials (optional - to incorporate into your design)

What comes with the Mousetrap Vehicle 2.0?

The table shows what comes in each single kit. To see what comes in a 10-pack, just multiply by 10.

Component

Quantity

Mousetrap Screws

4

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3... 2... 1... GO! Levers swing forward as cars race down the hall, converting the energy stored in the mousetrap to the motion of the vehicle. Kids engineer their cars for speed, distance, or to stop on a target, and can complete the optional lever lab.

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Adafruit Industries - Makers, hackers, artists, designers and engineers!

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A new guide today in the Adafruit Learning System by Kathy Ceceri - Cardboard Circuit Playground Express Inchworm Robot

Looking for a way to get kids designing and building their own simple robots? With just a Circuit Playground Express (CPX), a servo motor, and a few household materials, anyone can create a Cardboard Inchworm that meets the "sense-think-act" definition of a robot!

See the guide now!

Stop breadboarding and soldering - start making immediately! Adafruit's Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.

Join 32,000+ makers on Adafruit's Discord channels and be part of the community! http://adafru.it/discord

Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show's live chat - we'll post the link there.

Join us every Wednesday night at 8pm ET for Ask an Engineer!

Follow Adafruit on Instagram for top secret new products, behinds the scenes and more https://www.instagram.com/adafruit/

CircuitPython - The easiest way to program microcontrollers - CircuitPython.org

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NEW GUIDE: Cardboard Circuit Playground Express Inchworm Robot #AdafruitLearningSystem @adafruit @KathyCeceri #Robots @MSMakeCode

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A new guide today in the Adafruit Learning System by Kathy Ceceri - Cardboard Circuit Playground Express Inchworm Robot Looking for a way to get kids designing and building their own simple robots? With just a Circuit Playground Express (CPX), a servo motor, and a few household materials, anyone can create a Cardboard Inchworm that meets the "sense-think-act" definition of a robot!