Desiree, Megan and Courtney's Bean Project

1) Picture and drawing

Our bean is put into the top of our "slide" and travels downwards 2 meters before turning and traveling one meter in a second slide.

2) Physics:

Pink arrows represent the forces of gravity and velocity in our device where as the blue ones show the force that friction has on the bean as it slides down the note card ramp.

3) Why did we do this? This assignment really helped the group to think outside the box and use "scientific process" to find the best way to move the bean. We had to listen to each others ideas and try many different solutions before finding a method that actually worked. When we were given another groups model, we had to find ways to improve their model and transform it to complete an entirely new task. We discovered new ways to use simple objects to create a more specific task.
 I think we also completed this assignment to give us ideas for a project to use in an elementary science class. It's always helpful to complete a project before you expect your students to complete it so you can provide them with explanations, new ideas and ask them questions to help them better understand the assignment. This is a great way to get kids to understand the use of gravity, velocity, friction and many other physical sources that they will encounter everyday. Some questions you might ask the students are: How can you reduce the amount of friction in the device? Can you complete the same task (ex. Moving a bean 2 meters, turning it and moving it another 1 meter) without the use of gravity? If I gave you a new materials, would you be able to create a device that works the same way? A few questions that we need to consider as a teacher are: Do students of different ages need more or less instruction and/or background information to complete and understand this project? How much time will this take? Would these materials (notecards, paperclips, tape, string, etc) be the best ones to use? What other resources will be available?
Overall, we found this assignment to be very fun and exciting and think that students of many ages would enjoy completing this project and learn a lot from it.