Mechanical Engineering For Kids
Here are three fun and
easy Mechanical Engineering activities For Kidsthat can turn into
home STEM projects, elementary school STEM curriculum or engineering science
fair projects. MechAnimations develops engineering ideas about force, motion,
structures, mechanisms, levers and linkages. Fantastic Elastic provides an
engaging introduction to energy, showing that energy is conserved, and how it
can be stored and then transformed from potential to kinetic energy. Flip Toys
illustrates lever principles as well as concepts of tension and gravity.
MechAnimations are
home-made mechanisms that can illustrate the actions of animals, people or
scenes. Children make these devices from ordinary carboard, held together with
paper fasteners. The first objects they create may not be mechanisms at all –
instead these objects may be structures, which have no moving parts! As they
begin to create mechanisms, they learn about inputs and outputs, pivots, levers
and links. By operating an input, they make something move at an output. They
relate the operation of these constructions to mechanisms in their own
environments, which include devices found in the kitchen, bathroom and desk,
such as salad tongs, nail clippers and scissors.
In Fantastic Elastic, children make wind-up
toys powered by rubber bands. A wind-up toy can be made from a cup, one or two
paper plates or plastic lids, a stick, a bead, and a paper clip, as well as a
rubber band. When you wind it up by turning the stick, you are storing
potential energy in the rubber band. By letting it go, you are converting the
potential energy into kinetic energy. This can not be the only energy
transformation involved in a wind-up, because energy cannot be created nor
destroyed. Where do you get the energy to wind up the rubber band in the first
place? What happens to the kinetic energy of the wind-up as it slows down and
then stops? These are all interesting questions that highlight the principles
of energy conservation and transformation.
A Flip Toy is a toy that is common in Latin
America, where it goes by the names trapecista, acrobataorsalto
de muerte. You can make a flip toy from two rulers, some cardboard or a
plastic bottle top, string, tape, a clothespin and craft materials. Squeezing
the two wooden handles causes a small figure, the acrobat, to do a complete
somersault. The wooden handles are levers that apply tension to a loop of
string. The tension in the string forces the acrobat to jump up, and releasing
the handles allows gravity to make him drop down.
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