From Can Crushers to Roller Coasters: Engineering with Energy

Through a series of five hands-on engineering activities, students investigate potential and kinetic energy, energy transformations, and the conservation of energy. Students explore how mass, height, speed, gravity, and friction affect energy and motion while applying the engineering design process, conducting investigations, analyzing data, and developing system models.

The unit begins with the Can Crusher Challenge, in which students investigate how mass and drop height affect the energy available to crush an aluminum can. Next, in the Car on a Ramp Challenge, students deepen their understanding by systematically varying mass and ramp height, collecting quantitative data, and optimizing their designs to accomplish a task using minimal energy. Then, in the How Does a Roller Coaster Work activity, students design, build, test, and improve paper roller coasters to explore how gravitational potential energy transforms into kinetic energy and vice versa as objects move through a system. Building on their roller coaster investigations, students use the PhET Energy Skate Park Simulation activity to visualize energy transformations, investigate the effects of friction, and explore the conservation of energy. In the culminating Roller Coaster Final Model activity, students synthesize evidence from previous investigations to construct a final roller coaster system model and develop a scientific explanation of how energy is transferred, transformed, and conserved.

Engineers apply principles of energy, motion, and energy conservation to design systems that operate efficiently, reliably, and safely. Mechanical engineers use these principles to design roller coasters, machinery, and other systems that control energy transformations, while automotive engineers analyze how mass and speed affect energy transfer during collisions to improve vehicle safety. Engineers also consider energy losses due to friction when optimizing system performance. By developing models, conducting controlled tests, analyzing data, and refining designs, engineers use scientific evidence to predict system behavior, evaluate trade-offs, and develop effective solutions within real-world constraints.

List the suggested order of the associated lessons and activities along with their durations and brief descriptions in this Unit.