During our ‘Go Wild’ learning journey, Y4 explored how Bear Grylls (among others) has tried to develop cars that can take off, glide, and then land safely.
First, we created cars and experimented with different fans to see which were best for accelerating on the ground. We used timers to see how long each fan took to propel the car along a desk top. This required an understanding of electrical circuits, and how to connect energy sources to motors.
To support our understanding of flight, and how things can stay in the air, we learned about the effects drag, resistance, gravity and thrust have on objects in the air. We made paper helicopters and straw planes, and again investigated how these could be adapted to stay in the air for the longest possible time. For all these investigations we remembered to work scientifically and only change one variable.
Finally, we used plasticine to represent the weight of the flying cars, and experimented to see what size and shape parachute would help it to fall back to earth the smoothest and slowest. We used our special, custom-made ‘parachute launcher’ to test our designs out.