“We’re trying to figure out the velocity, acceleration and force required to move each of them, so you need to have the mass, time and distance to find all of that,” he explained. In comparison, the life-size hovercraft carrying him as a passenger was propelled by a much more forceful leaf blower, but only traveled 27 feet across the room.Ĭonnor also took note of the time it took the devices to travel those distances. Although his mini hovercraft had less weight and required less force to propel it down the hall, it traveled 47 feet. So weird!’ - student Nikko MunozĬlassmate Connor Hansen focused on the distance each hovercraft traveled in relation to its size and mass. ‘Just drifting across the entire room on a piece of wood and with a leaf blower next to you. So you could tell that the greater the mass, the more time it would take to accelerate.” “You could tell, like with (a classmate), he’s smaller than some of the other people who rode, and he went a lot faster. “I had no idea (Covey) would actually make a hovercraft that we would ride on,” Nikko said. The concept, however, was the same: As the leaf blower pushed down into the plastic, the hovercraft lifted up and carried the student across the floor. Thomas DeMink glides across the floor on a hovercraft that teacher Jordan Covey builtĪ few weeks later came the real test: After logging and analyzing data from their mini hovercrafts, the freshmen literally went for a ride on their very own hovercraft to compare how mass impacts movement.Ĭovey made the life-size version of the hovercraft using plywood, plastic wrap, duct tape and a leaf blower (thanks to a grant from the Cedar Springs Education Foundation). Students were allowed to make adjustments to their hovercrafts, like increasing or decreasing the amount of mass - or air - in the balloons, to see how that would affect performance. Teams of two competed to see whose hovercraft could travel the farthest down the hall, taking measurements to calculate the device’s velocity, acceleration, net force and momentum. “So as the air is pushing down, the floor is pushing back up and holding that air, and that’s what allows the movement.” “Newton’s third law is about equal and opposite forces,” she said. With a small fan creating an “air-hockey-table-effect” over the floor, the air escaping from the balloons and flowing under the CDs created a net force to get the device moving, Covey explained.
In the first part of the lab, students created “mini hovercrafts” out of CDs, balloons, bottle lids and hot glue, and then sent them floating down the hallway. “I get to have fun with them, and they get to be messy and have a good time and make that connection between what they’re doing and what they’re learning.”Įmily Stevens adjusts the balloon on her mini hovercraft as teacher Jordan Covey watches
“My students mean more to me than just academics - it’s why I love teaching science,” said Covey. The academic goal of the labs? That was to learn and understand Newton’s three laws of motion.īut actually putting students on plywood and gliding them across the room to demonstrate force, mass and acceleration? That was all Covey’s idea. Teacher Jordan Covey built the “hovercraft” as the second part of a two-step lab for her freshman conceptual physics class. Just drifting across the entire room on a piece of wood and with a leaf blower next to you. “It felt super weird - that’s all I can describe it as. “It feels like a roller coaster,” Nikko exclaimed as she took a seat.
Her classmates clapped as she narrowly missed a stack of chairs and coasted to a stop near the other end of the room. Within seconds, the contraption she was sitting on lifted off the ground and propelled Nikko across the tiled floor of the Cedar Springs High School lunchroom.
Cedar Springs - As the leaf blower roared to life, Nikko Munoz clapped one hand over her mouth to stifle a small yelp of surprise and laughter.
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