Math In Creating A Marble Roller Coaster

To keep roller coasters on the track make sure to do the math.

Math in creating a marble roller coaster.

You ll be creating a homemade marble run and exploring what happens to the marble as you make changes to the track. Your marble must not fall off until it gets to the end of the track. Just like the cars on a real roller coaster the marble has potential energy when it is at the top of the hill. Let s begin by measuring the speed your marble can attain.

The roller coaster starts with an initial drop usually a very high hill so the coaster gains enough speed. You ll need two lengths of pipe each about 1 8 meters long some tape a calculator a stopwatch and measuring. Build a roller coaster with 2 hills and one loop. Rolling downhill later in this activity you will make roller coasters for marbles out of foam pipe insu lation.

Gravitational potential energy and kinetic energy. Ngss k ps2 2 follow our science for kids pinterest board. The mathematics of. As it rolls it gains speed and momentum.

It s similar to how a roller coaster works this activity correlates with next generation science standards kindergarten. Using only these materials and tape each group had to create a roller coaster that included one loop. You may tape your run to furniture. This enables the marble to continue rolling when it comes to the smaller hills.

The energy becomes kinetic energy when the marble rolls down the hill. Build your own marble roller coaster in this project and find out. Your marble must land in the cup at the end of the run. You may only use the materials provided.

I used this marble roller coaster activity to kick off our discussion of kinetic and potential energy in physical science.