[This is a back-issue of one of this site’s newsletters]
One of my 7 year old son’s science books suggested this experiment.
I got a block of wood, and hammered two nails onto it. He strung an elastic band between them, so he could use the block as a little projectile launcher.
On the block of wood, he used a ruler to draw a scale, showing how far back the elastic band was pulled.
Then, we got his toy cars, a tape measure and a pad of paper. I taught him to pull the car back, release it, then measure how far the car went. He would then note the distance in his notebook.
He tried the same experiment with a marble and an eraser.
Science!
By the way, if you want a Valentine’s Day themed math, get this love heart math puzzle.
That’s super cool. I should probably know the relationship between how far back it was pulled and how far it went, but as I don’t. What was it? I assume distance flung was linear relative to the weight of the thing flung?