Hot Wheels Physics

Diecast64 Monday, 10/5/2015

So I’ve been using Hot Wheels cars for a while in the physics classes I teach as we study motion, but we’ve never actually had a race.  All that changed last week.  For our acceleration lab I modified my DragTracks track so that it had a consistent slope and we did some RACING!!!  The students raced their cars and recorded their times.  They subtracted the reaction times from the total times to get the elapsed time.  This is what they used to first calculate velocities, and then accelerations.  They also calculated their scale acceleration in mph/s.  Some of the faster cars had scale accelerations upwards of 90ish mph/s.  That means they were going from a scale 0-60 mph in less than .7 seconds!  As I described to the kids, if you were to shrink down and get in that Hot Wheels car for the race, you would definitely get set back in your seat!  It would feel like you would be going 100 mph in just over a second.  Now that’s fast! Of course I had to bring in a ringer and beat them all! The FTE Cadillac Sixteen had a scale acceleration of 106 mph/s and a 0-60 time of .57 seconds. 

Here’s a video of a few races so you can see the track set-up.  It’s actually not a very steep slope, so these accelerations are way less than what we are used to!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttbU4qo7nso 

If there are any other teachers out there, or you just want to investigate velocity and acceleration with your kids, here is a pic of the lab sheet.

http://i1284.photobucket.com/albums/a563/Robby_Comeford/D8224560-314F-4931-96A5-D38773392742_zpswbci...

http://i1284.photobucket.com/albums/a563/Robby_Comeford/60B889EA-D960-40D0-B526-CACAFB2D1C0D_zpsil6d...


Discussion

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72_Chevy_C10 10/5/15

Cool! I think I've seen that Hot Wheels puts out a kit for schools...if I'm not mistaken.

Good work...give the kids a practical application! And teach them how make fast cars!

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redlinederby 10/5/15
Site manager

Very cool! My wife is a teacher so I know that getting kids to pay attention can be hard...toys always seem to work :)

And hell, most of that physics is above my head! So seeing the worksheet and stuff is really great, honestly. I spent my senior physics class messing with robotics and programming so the actual physics stuff wasn't even in my brain...been trying to make up for it ever since.

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redlinederby 10/5/15
Site manager

Maybe also worth linking to some other science links for derby racing...

http://www.redlinederby.com/topic/derby-science-video-and-tips/2184

I also did my own little experiment way back when and put it on the old RLD blog. Funny thing was an OSU professor and NASA guy chimed in and lent some serious science to the article (if you believe them). Pretty neat either way.

http://archive.redlinederby.com/blog/2009/11/mythbusters-golf-ball-car-hot-wheels-style/

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