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Raceways & Rollercoasters - Super Coasters
1 Hour
100% recommend this activity
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Make a mini roller coaster!
Children get too few chances to experiment with materials and to design and build objects of their own creation. These Raceways and Roller Coasters activities allow your students these opportunities, and engage them on many different levels as well. Building these tracks and rolling marbles down them help children to develop problem-solving and teamwork skills and touch upon some basic principles of physics like energy, acceleration and momentum.
Preparation
If you haven't done them yet, try the other Raceways and Roller Coasters activities (starting with "Marble Races") before creating the super coasters. If you would prefer to just do this activity, see Raceways & Roller Coasters - Marble Races for information on preparing the materials.
instructions
Opening Discussion
Ask your students if they have ever been on a roller coaster before. Have a volunteer draw on the board or on chart paper a line drawing representing the path a roller coaster might take. Ask your students where on the path they think the roller coaster car is traveling quickly, and where on the path it is traveling less quickly. You could also have your students brainstorm a list of words that describe what it’s like to be on a roller coaster.
The Challenge
Use everything you learned about loops, jumps and hills and build a super roller coaster! There are a few rules – the marble must make it to the end of the track, the roller coaster must have at least 1 loop, and the marble has to leave and rejoin the track at least once (meaning it should be in the air at some point!). This sounds tough, but be creative and remember what you learned in the earlier Raceways sessions!
Doing the Activity
- Group your students into teams of 3 for this activity.
- Hand out the materials to each team and either have them choose a space to work or assign spaces. Remember that each team is now getting 12 feet of track – four 3-foot sections or two 6-foot sections.
- Teams should feel free to use anything available to them in the room and should attach their tracks (using the tape) to chairs, desks or the wall, or wherever they’d like – encourage creativity! Just make sure that their track stands on its own without any team members needing to hold it up.
- Have each team begin experimenting with making their roller coasters. While they are building, your job is to check in on each team and ask them questions about their process.
After 10–15 minutes, stop your students and bring them together to share their observations with each other. What is easy and what is difficult? Does anyone have any suggestion for the other teams on how to make a successful roller coaster? This discussion should last no more than 5–10 minutes.
Have teams continue to make their roller coasters. At the end of the session, when all teams are done, bring all of the teams together to share their results. Have each team show off their roller coaster, and ask them to tell the other teams about something that they changed about what they created during the session. Then, have them roll a marble down the track. If the marble doesn’t make it to the end, let them keep trying until they have a successful run. If they are unable to achieve a successful run after several attempts, ask if any of the other teams have any suggestions for things that the reporting team might change, have them make a change and then try rolling again – stay with it until they are successful!
Suggestions
- Try this activity a few times, and give teams more than 12 feet of track—see if they can be just as successful with a longer roller coaster!
TeacherFeature
1 year ago
We went to a workshop about this activity with the museum and it was great. When we brought the activity back to our kids, they liked it so much that they didn't want to go home when their parents came to get them! We pull this out every vacation week and kids often work as a whole big team to create one giant, elaborate roller coaster. This is one of my all time favorites.
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