Primary 4-7 participated in a national SSERC Glow Science Meet online hosted by Thornhill Primary School. The theme of the investigation was to use our technologies skills to construct an ‘O’ ring glider. Along with other schools participating, we followed the video link instructions on how to construct our glider.
The activity then extended to consider a fair scientific investigation. We asked ourselves the following question: How can the shape of the flights on an ‘O’ ring glider affect the distance the glider travels?
The children were challenged to consider how to make this a fair test. They were very thorough and identified the following criteria:
- We will keep the material and length of the shaft the same.
- We will use the same length and weight of cardboard strips for our flights.
- We will launch the gliders in the same way.
The only thing we decided to change was to alter the ‘O’ ring flight shape to a square ‘box’ shape.
The children constructed both prototypes and predicted which design would travel the farthest. We had fun testing them in our playground. After repeating our test, to ensure a clear trend, our conclusion was that the cylindrical shapes travelled a little farther. We think this is because this was a more aerodynamic, streamlined shape.
We applied maths to measure the strips and to measure the distance of the longest flight for each trial.
It proved a very informative challenge.
# Successful learners
