balloon hovercraft engineering activity …（气球气垫船工程活动u2026）.pdf

Balloon Hovercraft Engineering Activity Teacher’s Guide Goals: • The goal of this activity is to teach your students the simple concepts of thrust and action/reaction forces (Newton’s Laws). th th • This project is designed for students between 4 and 6 grade. • Although some thinking and designing is required, this activity should not seem overly difficult for the students. • The design and racing of the hovercraft should be a fun and effective learning tool to explore some simple physics and engineering principles. Materials: • The students can be asked to each bring a CD of any type, and a film canister. • Also needed is: • Scissors • Tape • Super Glue (if students are younger you might need to super glue the canister onto the CD for them) • Large balloons, at least twice as many that students. • A large table for the competition. • Markers for them to decorate their hovercrafts. How to make the hovercraft: The simplest design is made by taking the film canister and gluing it to the top of the center of the CD with the openings lining up. Each canister should have a hole cut in the bottom and several holes cut around the sides (pictures can be found online). Each group can design as many hovercrafts as people in the group, but only one can be used in the competition. Once the canister has been glued securely to the CD, blowing up a balloon and placing it over the film canister and releasing will allow the air to push down through the canister and give lift to the craft (similar to an air hockey table). This is the simplest of designs. But opening or closing the holes on the side of the canister you can cause th