This activity is "geared" to students aged 10 and up.
Students with previous LEGO® experience may attend from ages 9 and up.
In this activity, pairs of students are challenged to build a slow car using a Motorized LEGO® kit. Students begin with a bicycle building activity that introduces the concepts of gearing down and gear ratios. They then build a motorized car built with a pulley system. Students then use what they learned from these practice vehicles to design cars that are timed on a one meter course to see how slow they can go. Some cars can take twenty minutes or more to finish. Students
are encouraged to modify their design throughout the activity. This activity provides students with a hands-on, mechanical engineering
design experience.
Here's some footage from June 2004. Check out the third car's gear and pulley movement.
For an article on children's concept of gears from the Journal of Research in Science Teaching, please Click here.
