Wind Powered Cars STEM challenge

Students were engineers on Wednesday and Thursday last week as they were told to construct a wind powered car out of certain materials. Students went to the Wonder room and bought the materials they needed and used teamwork to construct the cars that they believed would withstand the wind when the time came. Before students could do anything they had to collaborate with their group and draw a design of their car so when we went to the room students knew exactly what materials they needed. 

Students designed their cars and tested them, only ONE student made a car that moved when the fan hit it and it moved in a straight line! Way to go Jeresa!  Students were baffled as to why they FAILED the design. They went back to do their redesign, communicating with their teammates about what they could change they all came up with making their cars lighter. So all students redesigned their cars and we went back to retest the next day, all cars didn't move after the redesign but most of them did! Students went back to the classroom and reflected on what they learned during this activity, one important component to this activity was having perseverance, without perseverance many of the cars would never leave the ground.