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Rubber Bands, Wheels and Lights at the Makerspace

Grade 6 practice: rubber-band car, collision and bike-wheel generator data from a makerspace show energy moving whenever kinetic energy changes.

Grade 6ScienceInteractive · Printable

Aligned toMS-PS3-5

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What’s included

Single worksheet
Auto-graded online
1 NGSS standard
Printable answer key
12 questions
Classroom-ready

Details

Format: Interactive · Printable
Grade: Grade 6
Subject: Science
Question types: Fill in the blank, Multiple choice, Circle the answer, Short answer

About this worksheet

What students practice

Students use speed and kinetic energy data to argue that energy is transferred when an object speeds up or slows down.
Students compare runs of a fair test to find where a spinning wheel's energy goes.

How to use

Use after introducing kinetic energy. Have partners trace where the energy comes from and goes for each device before they answer the open response.

Curriculum

NGSS standard covered

MS-PS3-5

Argue from evidence that when an object's kinetic energy changes, energy is transferred to or from the object.

Preview

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Name Date

Rubber Bands, Wheels and Lights at the Makerspace

Follow the energy every time a device speeds up or slows down.

The rubber-band car

Read the passage and the car table. Use them to answer questions 1–6.

Build Night at the Library Makerspace

1Once a month, the makerspace at the Eastgate Library holds a build night. This month, maker mentor Ruben Castellanos challenged the teens to build simple devices that move and then to track where the energy goes. Sixth grader Thandiwe Brandt kept the data for her team.

2First the team built a rubber-band car with a mass of 0.20 kg. One end of a rubber band is tied to the frame and the other is hooked onto the rear axle. Turning the back wheels backward winds the band around the axle and stretches it. When the car is let go, the band pulls on the axle as it unwinds, and the wheels turn. The team tested 10, 20, 30 and 40 winds, using the same car, the same band and the same smooth wood floor. A phone filmed each run beside tape marks so the team could find the car's top speed, and an app used the mass and top speed to find its kinetic energy. They ran three trials for each number of winds and recorded the averages. After 40 winds, the band felt tight and slightly warm.

3Next they lined up two identical cars. A wound car rolled at 1.5 m/s into a parked car that had no band. The app showed that the moving car had 0.23 J of kinetic energy just before the hit. Right after the hit, the moving car crept along at about 0.1 m/s with almost no kinetic energy left, and the parked car rolled away at about 1.3 m/s with about 0.17 J. The team heard a sharp click as the bumpers hit.

4Last, the team tested a bike wheel on a stand. A small bike-light generator, called a dynamo, can be tipped so its little roller presses on the tire. When the tire spins the roller, the dynamo can power a lamp. Each time, Thandiwe spun the wheel by hand until a phone app read 120 rotations per minute, then let it coast and timed how long it took to stop. In Run A the dynamo was tipped away from the tire. In Run B the roller pressed on the tire but the lamp switch was off. In Run C the roller pressed on the tire and the lamp was on. The team noticed that the dynamo's case felt slightly warm after Run C.