How do you top stomp rockets?
The answer is, you don't. Each activity should be judged on its own merits. I figured this out after this STEAM activity.
Searching the Internet for STEAM activity ideas, I came upon HowToons. Of their many projects, I thought the spool racers would be the easiest to do in a classroom, with the least amount of clean up afterwards.
At first I was going to talk about potential and kinetic energy, and maybe touch upon conservation of energy. Then I regained my senses and simplified things down to a single principle. A spool racer is basically an engine. What is an engine? It's something that converts one form of energy into mechanical motion.
I got the class to that point by asking for examples of things with motors or engines in them.
I then told them we were going to build an engine that converts energy stored in a rubber band into mechanical energy, all while winding up my sample spool racer. Then I let the racer go across the table, and the class was hooked.
After that, it was just a matter of building the spool racers, and letting the class play. A lot of spare rubber bands came in handy, too.
Honestly, after the stomp rockets, I thought this activity was going to bomb. Turned out, I was wrong. Feedback from my son was everyone had a great time and liked the spool racers a lot. Having a month between activities probably helped in this respect as well.
