🚗 Car ramp and books: the whole packet

🚗 Car ramp and books · kindergarten · 1 day of testing · free · 25 minutes a sitting

My days, if the fair is 14 days away

Count back from your fair day and write in each date. Fewer days than this? The jobs share days, in this order; nothing is skipped.

Dates from my teacher

• My question is due
• Testing starts
• My results table and graph are due
• My board is due

In this packet

1. 🗓️ My project plan
2. 💭 My hypothesis
3. 🧺 Change, measure, keep the same
4. 🪜 My steps
5. 📊 My results
6. 📓 My logbook
7. ✅ My conclusion
8. ✂️ Board titles to cut out
9. 🏅 The judge's questions and my certificate

If I change how many books hold up the ramp, then how many heel-to-toe steps the car rolls will ________________, because _____________________________________________

What I think will happen, in my own words:

3 levels × 3 tries at each = 9 tries in all. If anything you keep the same changes, you won't know which change made the difference.

What I need

• 🚗 A toy car
• 📚 Some books: 3 the same size
• 📦 Flat cardboard: a long flat piece for the ramp
• 🖍️ Crayons or markers

Be safe: ✅ Nothing sharp, hot or small

1. Lean the cardboard on one book to make a ramp.
2. Hold the car at the top of the ramp and let go. Don't push.
3. When it stops, walk heel to toe from the ramp to the car, counting your steps.
4. Your grown-up writes the number down. Do it two more times.
5. Put the ramp on 2 books, then 3 books, and roll it three times each.
6. Colour a box for every step. Which ramp sent the car farthest?

Write each number in your results table the moment you measure it.

I changed: Books under the ramp   I measured: how many heel-to-toe steps the car rolls (steps)

MY GRAPH (a bar graph: books under the ramp along the bottom, steps up the side)

What I noticed: ______________________________________________

Write something every day you work on it, even the days you only gather things. More days? The three-page logbook prints from peabody.kids/science-fair/templates/logbook.

My hypothesis was ☐ right ☐ partly right ☐ not right.

I know because my numbers show:

What surprised me, or what might have gone wrong (7th and up):

Next time I would test:

Idea: Change a second thing: roll it from each ramp onto carpet as well as the hard floor.

1. What made you want to ask this question? Say something like: I wanted to know: does a higher ramp make a toy car roll farther?
2. What did you think would happen, and why? Say something like: I thought changing how many books hold up the ramp would change how many heel-to-toe steps the car rolls, and I wrote down why.
3. What did you change, and what did you measure? Say something like: I changed how many books hold up the ramp (1 book, 2 books, 3 books) and measured how many heel-to-toe steps the car rolls in steps.
4. What did you keep the same, and why does that matter? Say something like: I kept the same toy car and the same board for a ramp the same, so only how many books hold up the ramp was different.
5. How many times did you test it? Say something like: 3 times at each of my 3 levels, and I found the middle number.
6. What did you find out? Show me in your numbers. Say something like: Look at my table: 1 book and 3 books gave different numbers, and here's the pattern.
7. Was your hypothesis right? How do you know? Say something like: My numbers show whether I was right, partly right or not, and I can show you where.
8. Did anything go wrong, or surprise you? Say something like: One try was odd, so I did it again and wrote it in my logbook.
9. If you did it again, what would you change or test next? Say something like: I'd change a second thing: roll it from each ramp onto carpet as well as the hard floor.