If a car gets heavier, it goes farther? By running an activity several times, teams experience Newton's Second Law of Motion. The teams vary the amount of weight they catapult off a wooden block car and record the distance the car travels. They also vary the number of rubber bands to catapult the weight.

Concepts

newton's first law of motion, newton's laws of motion, newton's second law of motion, newton's third law of motion

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Additional Tags

newton, science

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Instructional Ideas

• Have teams make scatter plots using mass vs. distance and number of rubber bands vs. distance while holding the third variable constant
• Perform multiple trials with the same force and mass

Classroom Considerations

• Newton Cars must be constructed prior to use
• The rubber bands should be positioned at the center of mass of the container

Pros

• Provides tips to help with the acquisition of materials and consistency of setups
• The data collection sheet requests an analysis of the data to explain the relationship among force, weight, and distance

Cons

• The bar graph is not necessarily the best way to display the data