Friction Car Experiment and Map Prank

On the podcast this week, Richie Leahey talks about building cars for science olympiad and a prank he played on a friend.

Science Olympiad – Friction Car Experiment

Objective: Students will analyze which surfaces produce the most friction.

For this experiment, each group of students designed and built their own wooden cars. Then we set up ramps in the classroom created using different materials. The students sent their cars down each ramp measuring the distance that it traveled. Once the students completed their initials tests, they had to come up with ideas to make the cars travel even further down each ramp. Then we tested their theories using their cars again.