Top Spinning for Over 50 Minutes
Description: The top in this video continues spinning for 50 minutes with a single push. As amazing as that is it is still over six hours short of the world record. Students could design and test tops of their own that utilize either pushes or pulls.
Web Resources: Spinning top - Wikipedia, Making a top that spins for 5 minutes - Instructables
Caine’s Arcade
Description: Caine's Arcade is a short video detailing the summer when 9-year old Caine Monroy built an arcade in his father's auto shop. This video went viral and inspired the Cardboard Challenge through which thousands of students have created arcades of their own. As long as the arcade games created change the speed or direction of an object with a push or a pull (e.g. a pinball machine) they can be used as an engineering challenge in this unit on pushes and pulls.
Web Resource: Caine's Arcade: A boy's cardboard arcade that inspired the world
Amazing Rube Goldberg Machines
Description: Rube Goldberg machines are named after American cartoonist Rube Goldberg who drew complicated steps involved in doing a fairly simple task (like pouring milk in a glass). Students can study these machines, or build their own, to show how energy can be converted through a series of interactions. In lower elementary classes they might be shown or built to show how pushes or pulls can change the motion of objects. As they move through school they should start to identify specific collisions, interactions, and conversions of energy.
Web Resources: Rube Goldberg Machines - Wikipedia
Amazing Slinky Tricks
Description: The Slinky was invented by Richard James, an engineer, who was working with springs to support and stabilize equipment on a ship. Simple slinky tricks show how forces (pushes and pulls) change the direction of an object. Students can design a set of stairs, or obstacles, that the Slinky can navigate. In the secondary science classroom it can be used to investigate inertia, oscillations, and Hooke's law. This phenomenon can also be used to investigate wave properties.
Web Resource: Slinky - Wikipedia
Perplexus Epic 1-125 Demonstration
Description: In this video YouTuber UncleDaver safely navigates challenges 1-125. This toy shows how pushes and pulls can be used to change the motion of an object. It is a much simpler version of a Rube Goldberg device. A simple version of the perplexus can be build using a box, marble, tape and blocks.
Web Resources: Perplexus website
