This seminar has now ended.
The competition is scheduled for March 12th at the Baltimore Museum of Industry. Below are a few pieces of information I would like to pass along.
Today, the instructional portion of Safe Racer wrapped up with a review session. From this point forward, the only time I will meet with your team will be when/if you request Mr. Mauer and I to conduct tests in school on Fridays from 1:50 - 2:20. If you would like us to conduct tests:
We discussed that the center of gravity of your Safe Racer car should be about 1 to 1.5" in front of the rear axle. I explained that by having the center of gravity closer to the rear of the car would ensure that a majority of the weight was pushing down the ramp as long as possible.
Today, we broke up into two groups. Both groups explored potential and kinetic energy. However, one group did an activity with me, while the other group did an activity with Mr. Mauer. Next week, we will repeat this week's demonstrations with the groups flip flopping.
Here are the steps needed to move the 2 Safe Racer team documents to your Drive.
That's it! Don't type on the document until the Safe Racer coach instructs you to. Neither Mr. Mauer nor I could make the session today. However, Mrs. Weeks stepped in and taught students about momentum. Students learned that momentum will help overcome friction and that speed and weight play a part in a car's momentum.
Today, students were introduced to the concept of Newton's First Law of Motion. We learned that friction is a force that will act upon the Safe Racer car causing it to eventually slow down. In addition to watching a short video and watching a brief demonstration, students were able to rotate through 3 stations, each of which contained different grits of sandpaper (i.e. coarse, medium, and fine). By rubbing the pieces of sandpaper together they were able to experience how much harder it is to rub two things together when there is a greater amount of friction. Students began to understand where friction impacts the Safe Racer car (e.g. wheels and ground; side of wheels and edge of track; axles and axle mount).
We had an extra session of Safe Racer today so that we could determine teams. Within the next month, your child's coach will be contacting you to introduce themselves and begin setting up team meetings.
Great news! We officially have enough coaches to ensure that every child can participate. However, we can always use additional coaches to help reduce the number of students on each team which will in turn limit the amount of work our coaches must do. At our next class, we will begin learning about potential and kinetic energy.
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March 2016
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