🌀 Spinning top disc size: the whole packet

🌀 Spinning top disc size · 3rd–7th 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 big the disc on the top is, then how long the top spins will ________________, because _____________________________________________

What I think will happen, in my own words:

3 levels × 5 tries at each = 15 tries in all. If anything you keep the same changes, you won't know which change made the difference.

What I need

• 📦 Flat cardboard: thin, like a cereal box
• 🧢 A bottle cap
• 🥤 Paper cups: 1
• 🥣 A big bowl
• ✏️ A pencil
• ⏱️ A stopwatch or a kitchen timer
• ✂️ Kid scissors
• 🩹 Tape
• 📏 A ruler

Be safe: 👶 Small parts

1. Trace a bottle cap, a paper cup's bottom and a bowl's bottom on thin cardboard, and cut out the discs.
2. Measure across each disc with the ruler, and write the sizes in your table.
3. Grown-up: A grown-up pokes the pencil point through the middle of each disc, to start a hole that just fits.
4. Push the pencil through the small disc, and tape it on 2 cm up from the tip.
5. Stand the top on a smooth table, twist the pencil between finger and thumb, and let go.
6. A helper starts the timer when you let go, and stops it when the top falls over.
7. Write the time in your table, then spin it four more times, twisting the same way.
8. Slide the disc off, tape on the medium disc 2 cm up, and do five spins.
9. Swap in the big disc the same way and do five more spins.
10. Find the mean for each disc size and draw a line graph.

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

I changed: Disc size   I measured: how long the top spins (seconds)

MY GRAPH (a line graph: disc size along the bottom, seconds 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: tape 0, 2 and 4 pennies evenly around the edge of the medium disc, and graph how the spin time changes.

1. What made you want to ask this question? Say something like: I wanted to know: does a bigger disc make a top spin longer?
2. What did you think would happen, and why? Say something like: I thought changing how big the disc on the top is would change how long the top spins, and I wrote down why.
3. What did you change, and what did you measure? Say something like: I changed how big the disc on the top is (Small (a bottle cap), Medium (a cup bottom), Big (a bowl bottom)) and measured how long the top spins in seconds.
4. What did you keep the same, and why does that matter? Say something like: I kept the same pencil and the disc taped the same distance up from the tip the same, so only how big the disc on the top is was different.
5. How many times did you test it? Say something like: 5 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: Small (a bottle cap) and Big (a bowl bottom) 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: tape 0, 2 and 4 pennies evenly around the edge of the medium disc, and graph how the spin time changes.