Newton Rocket Car
Through the use of small wooden cars, this activity demonstrates Newton's third law of motion—which states that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. The "Newton rocket cars" that students put together show how action/reaction works and how the mass of a moving object affects the acceleration and force of the system. Subsequently, the Newton cars provide students with an excellent analogy for how rockets work. In the continuing story for this unit, students' model cars help them understand the motion of rockets so that as engineers they can prepare to design a rocket to get Tess' satellite into orbit to communicate with Rohan and Tess' daughter, Maya, on her canoe trip.
Students examine Newton's third law of motion.Copyright 2004 Microsoft Corporation, One Microsoft Way, Redmond, WA 98052-6399 USA. All rights reserved; 2006 modified by Janet Yowell, CU-Boulder
Engineers often build models to demonstrate and study the physical laws of science as they apply in different situations and applications. Engineers who design rockets might even experiment with a small wooden car to understand Newton's third law of motion. Such a car must obey the laws of motion, just as a rocket must. Observing how a toy wooden car moves forward when a small block is launched off its back is analogous to a rocket moving forward when hot gases are expelled from the back of the rocket. By studying the similarities and differences between a small model and a real-world rocket, engineers can successfully build rockets using what they learned from their experimental model demonstrations.
After this activity, students should be able to:
- Explain the concept described by Newton's third law of motion.
- Describe what happens to motion if the mass or acceleration is increased.
- Collect and analyze distance data gathered in a Newton car activity.
- Explain why engineers need to know about Newton's laws of motion.