“This is less interesting than I thought it would be,” grumbled Adlai Reinhart as he let go of a Hot Wheels car for a physics experiment. Reinhart’s group was having trouble working together. They were letting a toy car go down a ramp and timing how long it take to make it to the bottom, marking six different starting points along the track; a seemingly simple lab to measure acceleration.
Although they had trouble working together, they got through their lab.
“The kids always get really excited when we use Hot Wheels, [thinking] that they’re going to be on fire or have rocket boosters on them, but the fact of the matter is that they still have to collect data on acceleration,” explained Courtney Kiley, CHS physics teacher. “This is the most fun way I can think of doing it.”
Physics students are often doing engaging projects in the halls, measuring velocity, acceleration and collecting other data.
