🚗 Ramp height and toy cars: the whole packet

🚗 Ramp height and toy cars · 2nd–6th grade · 1 day of testing · free · 45 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 high the ramp is, then how far 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, all about the same thickness
• 📦 Flat cardboard: a long flat piece, about 60 cm
• 🩹 Masking tape, to mark lines
• 📏 A tape measure, or a long ruler

Be safe: ✅ Nothing sharp, hot or small

1. Lean the cardboard on one book to make a ramp on a hard floor.
2. Put a strip of masking tape across the top of the ramp: that's your start line.
3. Put the car's front wheels on the line and let go. Don't push!
4. When it stops, measure from the bottom of the ramp to the front of the car.
5. Write the number in your results table under Try 1.
6. Do it two more times from the same line, and write each one down.
7. Add a second book under the ramp and do three more tries.
8. Add a third book and do three more tries.
9. Find the middle number for each height, and draw your graph.

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

I changed: Ramp height   I measured: how far the car rolls (cm)

MY GRAPH (a line graph: ramp height along the bottom, cm 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: run the 3-book ramp onto carpet and onto a hard floor, and draw both lines on one graph.

1. What made you want to ask this question? Say something like: I wanted to know: does a steeper ramp make a toy car go farther?
2. What did you think would happen, and why? Say something like: I thought changing how high the ramp is would change how far the car rolls, and I wrote down why.
3. What did you change, and what did you measure? Say something like: I changed how high the ramp is (1 book high, 2 books high, 3 books high) and measured how far the car rolls in cm.
4. What did you keep the same, and why does that matter? Say something like: I kept the same car and the same floor the same, so only how high the ramp is 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 high and 3 books high 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: run the 3-book ramp onto carpet and onto a hard floor, and draw both lines on one graph.