anyone got any good 4th grade automotive science fair ideas?

[jmz]

kid wants to do something with cars. ...trying to help do something that is "investigative" not "demonstrative"

any ideas?

keeps saying he wants to do how an engine works. ...clearly would be demonstrative not investigative which is exactly not what the requirements are.

[RANDY P]

+12v battery and a bunch of relays demonstrating various things. horn, lights, etc. etc.

rjp

[Tim Hancock]

My daughter's project in maybe 6th grade or so was a wind tunnel we built out of an old furnace fan and some plywood necked down to 6" x 6" in which we rigged up a reaction arm leveraged to depress a postal scale. We had three easy to attach 1" thick profiles (round, square and streamlined) and I rigged an old airplane airspeed indicator up to fancy it up a bit (it was a big fan and would produce 60mph). We got very nice numbers from it that easily showed the huge difference between the different shapes. She wrote up some stuff about how important aerodynamics is when designing efficient vehicles.

She advanced to the next level with it.

One could probably do this using something simpler like a leaf blower..... Just be sure that it is set up in a direction that it will not knock over everyone elses projects.

[jmz]

kicking around proving that weight and weight distribution effects handling and speed.

[mikester]

complete restoration of a 914?

[LWJ]

Trebuchet. Investigate the relationship between mass of counterweight and energy imparted to the projectile.

Potato canon. Investigate fuel air mixture as it relates to energy imparted to projectile.

Yes. I have a little boy. These were some great projects!
Larry

[syncroid]

How about a chart for the boiling temperatures of antifreeze and water in ten percent scales?

[Laneco]

Not automotive but trebuchets ROCK!

Our son built one for his 6th grade science project. His was a tennis ball trebuchet, about 3.5 feet tall. His experiment was to see the average distance that dry tennis balls, wet tennis balls and tennis balls soaked in kerosene AND LIT ON FIRE would go!

Ahh, yes... We were the hit of the neighborhood that night. You're not having fun until you are launching flaming tennis balls down the (very quiet) street at night! They are really, really cool looking. Especially when they bounce and live little droplets of flame behind.

Very, very cool! We took a bunch of pictures and Ryan got an A for his project, plus we didn't catch anything on fire that didnt' belong to us.

angela

[M.D. Holloway]

How about the effects of heat and contaminants (water, gas) on various engine oils?

[HardDrive]

Originally Posted by LubeMaster77

How about the effects of heat and contaminants (water, gas) on various engine oils?

I like where thats going. You could set something up that measures temperature to indicate the amount of friction. Then try corrupting the lubricant with various contaminants. Wouldn't require a huge time or $$$ in the setup, and could provide real data.

[URY914]

Air bags. Drive mom's car into a wall and see if they work.

[RedBaron]

You can easily make something "demonstrative" into something investigative. For instance, I built a Solid State Tesla Coil for one of my high school science fairs. In a way it was "demonstrative" but i made it "investigative" by creating a hypothesis that I could light a fluorescent bulb without wires in x distance. Plus, you generally learn more from projects that are a tiny bit more "demonstrative" because you learn and show more information in your project.

[id10t]

air pressure in tires and effect on handling, mpg, etc

[Embraer]

how about basic solar energy. (back in 1988, i went to the indiana state science fair for this one). i made a solar hot dog cooker out of a cereal box, and silver backed insulation board.

you're too far south to demonstrate how a black t-shirt layed on snow melts the snow faster than a white t-shirt.

or use a small solar cell to drive a model car (electric motor)?

automotive/green/investigative


any of these projects should have a question/hypothesis. the demonstrative part will work in concert with the investigative part

[Jagshund]

Do the 928 backwards thingy like MBs did but this time post specifics on both engines so we can be sure they're running within the same parameters. Sure, it might cost $15k but think of the bonding . . .

[M.D. Holloway]

Originally Posted by HardDrive

I like where thats going. You could set something up that measures temperature to indicate the amount of friction. Then try corrupting the lubricant with various contaminants. Wouldn't require a huge time or $$$ in the setup, and could provide real data.

Here is sump'n I just threw together, kinda elementry but it gets the points across:

[fireant911]

Something I had never heard of until recently (which I read here on Pelican)... Fire Piston. I think that this could make a really neat experiment plus provide a nice amount of education.

[Zeke]

Originally Posted by LubeMaster77

How about the effects of heat and contaminants (water, gas) on various engine oils?

Originally Posted by HardDrive

I like where thats going. You could set something up that measures temperature to indicate the amount of friction. Then try corrupting the lubricant with various contaminants. Wouldn't require a huge time or $$$ in the setup, and could provide real data.

This for a 4th grader? That and some of the answers that are clearly not "investigative" have left me wondering about you guys.

I mean this is a project to see which is easier to peel out on a tricycle, oil, water or sand. That knowledge of traction might come in handy some day.

[vash]

why automotive themed?

if i ever had to do it over again..i would reconstruct an entire chicken skeleton!! and ask my 4th grade teach out..Ms. Wright...what a cutie. she once showed the entire class a scar on her chest. some cancer operation. my mind went to the gutter in 3.2 seconds.

[Jagshund]

How about collecting methane emissions from a termite colony?