Ramp it up! Exploring Potential & Kinetic Energy

This week in science, we are exploring potential and kinetic energy. We started this unit with a crate from KiwiCo. Now, we are creating a marble run with one ramp and measuring travel distance. Measurements are taken from various inclines to observe how that affects speed and length of travel.

𝕎𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕪𝕠𝕦'𝕝𝕝 𝕟𝕖𝕖𝕕

*Three or more marbles of various sizes

*Two wooden dowels/sticks from your yard(at least 12in long)

*cardboard

*hot glue gun

*plastic bottle

*Exacto knife

*Yardstick

*Books for stacking

*Paper and Pencil to write down your findings

Marble weights

Clear marble 10g

Metal marble 8g

Yellow marble 1g

Close up of the bottle Cutout!

What is Potential and Kinetic Energy?

ℙ𝕠𝕥𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕚𝕒𝕝 𝔼𝕟𝕖𝕣𝕘𝕪 is the energy stored in an object due to its position relative to some zero position. An object possesses gravitational potential energy if positioned at a height above (or below) the zero height.

𝕂𝕚𝕟𝕖𝕥𝕚𝕔 𝔼𝕟𝕖𝕣𝕘𝕪 is the energy an object has due to its motion. As long as an object moves at the same velocity, it will maintain the same kinetic energy. Therefore, we can calculate The kinetic energy of an object by the speed and the mass of the object.

Ari had so much fun with this experiment! We learned that the clear marble traveled the furthest because it is the heaviest and moves much faster. So gather a few books and the supplies and see how far your marbles travel!

Here is a clip from our Tinker Crate!