Each group needs:

• a supply of dry pasta in a variety of shapes to serve as vehicle building material, such as large and flat lasagna noodles for car chassis, spaghetti for car axles, rotelle for wheels, penne to serve as bushings, etc.
• hot glue and glue gun; hot glue is the recommended adhesive because of the surface irregularities of pasta; alternatively, provide the instructor's choice of adhesive
• Spaghetti Soapbox Derby Pre/Post Quiz, two each per student
• Construction and Competition Rules
• Spaghetti Soapbox Derby Judging Instructions
• paper and pencil, for sketching designs

To share with the entire class:

• (optional) a small wheeled vehicle, such as a toy, for a quick demo, to let run down the ramp with different amounts of weight to demonstrate the resulting differences in distance traveled
• (optional) access to a computer with Internet access, for students to research example pasta cars OR for the teacher to find the same pictures in advance to print out to show the class
• test ramp for testing the pasta cars; such as a ramp composed of a 36 x 24-inch (91 x 61-cm) sheet of thin plywood, foam core board or similar materials that is raised on one side to a height of 13 inches (33 cm), perhaps propped on books or boxes secured with tape; see Figures 2 and 3 for details
• masking tape
• meter stick, yardstick or measuring tape