Car Collision Testing & Tradeoffs: Don’t Crack Humpty
Students are tasked with protecting an egg from cracking.Copyright 2005 K-12 Outreach Office, Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Student groups are provided with a generic car base on which to design a device/enclosure to protect an egg as it rolls down a ramp at increasing slopes. During this in-depth physics-science-technology-math activity, student teams design, build and test their prototype creations to meet the design challenge, and then perform basic mathematical calculations using collected data, including a summative cost-benefit ratio. The activity has great potential to build on with additional physics and math explorations. Many student handouts are provided.
Automotive manufacturers hire engineers to redesign cars in order to make them safer. This process always involves a trade-off between cost of manufacturing a new design and level of safety. After this activity, students will be able to recognize this trade-off and understand the concept of cost to benefit ratio.
After this activity, students should be able to:
- Explain the engineering design process.
- Explain the relationship between distance, time and speed.
- Describe how one can use math to solve a problem.