Science Activity with Spring Boards, Levers and Flipper Sticks

How can you design a flipper system to propel an object the furthest and highest?

Give students a variety of objects (corks, marbles, paperclips) to test.  Have them record the length of the lever, the name of the object and the distance and estimated height propelled.  

Below students are comparing the lengths of the lever and the distance the object flies.  

If you do not have these little blue boxes from FOSS, you can easily do this activity by putting a wooden ruler on the side of a table, holding the end on the table with one hand and adjusting the length of of the lever extending beyond the table.  

Questions for Student:  What factors affected the distance and height of an object?  

What is the relationship between the length of the flip stick and the distance the object moves?

What is the relationship between the compression of the spring and the amount of energy?  

If you like this post, you might like my templates for interactive notebooks  Templates for Interactive Notebooks  and Super Pack of Templates for Interactive Notebooks

Here is a Freebie recording sheet for you.  It can be folded as a trifold to fit neatly into the interactive notebook.

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