Dear Bloggers,
Year 2 made a spinning top launcher whilst investigating gears. The picture below shows the basic design brief.
The students made a double sided spinning top that could be launched using the small blue gear or the medium sized red gear. They experimented to see the differences.
They discovered that using the small blue on the top with the large yellow gear on the launcher spun the top the fastest. This is a gearing up setup where a large drive gear turns a small driven or follower gear.
That was just the beginning. The students had to design and make a non hand held launcher, launch several tops at one time, investigate what made the top stable and make the design more robust. This is what they came up with.
A non hand held launch pad with a hinged lift off head
Thanks for calling by
Mrs Garlick