Project Overview

For this design project, we plan to experiment with the primary concept of center of mass. This idea will be transformed into three, fifty-minute experiments. One experiment will be designing a structure with multiple tiers. Various sized weights will be distributed throughout the structure, and the main goal would be to calculate the center of mass. Another experiment would utilize the 3D printer. Creating a small teeter-totter with the printer and rolling different objects (toy cars, marbles, etc.) will display the importance of the center of mass. For the third experiment, we will demonstrate how mass affects balance. We plan on teaching middle school classes the fundamental physics and advanced problem-solving skills with engaging exercises. Some challenges that may be faced is our ability to get our message and the directions across to the audience. Some significant tasks are going to be to construct the props for our experiments and evaluating the necessary calculations. The final goal is to inform our audience about the concept of the center of mass using captivating methods.

The first part would be where the students are given cardboard cutouts, and told to hold loosely at the top, so they would discover this point was the center of mass. The second part would be using this to see how center of mass works on balance beams with unusual symmetry. The culminating activity would be a “Teeter Totter” where the kids would have to balance specified weights so the force would be even on both sides.

For the conclusion of the project, we plan on supplying physical prototypes, algorithms, and test results. At least two structures will be designed to present how the center of mass works. Algorithms can be created to aid the younger audience in conducting the experiment. A large part of one of our operations with the teeter-totter will be test results. We will have to test multiple objects by rolling them across the design, testing for speed and balance.

Labs:

1. Finding the Center of Mass: Students will be given a square of cardboard, they will hang it by any to points and draw lines straight down from where they hung it from. The intersection of these points will be the center of mass. They can then cut the cardboard to make a more abnormal shape and repeat the process to prove that this works for non-square shapes.
2. Balancing Center of Mass about a certain point: We will have designed a hanging “tree” that consists of dowel rods stuck through a 1x1 wooden stick. This will be used to hang masses along the horizontal dowel rods and students will be tasked with maintaining a consistent center of mass about the central 1x1 wooden stick.
3. Rolling Along a Central Axis: We will have a flat inorganically shaped surface with a central axle that will hang freely between two points. The center of mass will be along that axle, and the goal is to roll objects across the surface without tipping it to either side of the axle and rolling off the side.