Make a rubber-band powered wooden racer! A great, pocket-sized toy to explore transformation of energy. Bascially, a precursor to the wind-up car...
This is one of the projects for our Instructables: Made In Your Mind (IMIYM) exhibition at the Children’s Museum of Houston . Produced in partnership with Instructables, IMIYM is an exhibit where families work together to build different fun, toy-like projects that help construct knowledge and skills related to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics while instilling a “do-it-yourself” attitude in kids so they feel empowered to explore, tinker, and try to make things themselves. To learn more, check out the article here.
While this is a Children's Museum of Houston-designed activity, we found some similar activies like the Cotton Reel Tanks Instructable created by LDW. Often, the materials and process for building our projects are designed for use with a large number of visitors (we see over 800,000 annually) and the need to ensure safety in a mostly non-facilitated environment. So, yes, many of these projects have room for improvement in both materials and methodology, which is PRECISELY what we want to encourage the kids to do. So please do share your ideas for improvement and modifications!
This is one of the projects for our Instructables: Made In Your Mind (IMIYM) exhibition at the Children’s Museum of Houston . Produced in partnership with Instructables, IMIYM is an exhibit where families work together to build different fun, toy-like projects that help construct knowledge and skills related to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics while instilling a “do-it-yourself” attitude in kids so they feel empowered to explore, tinker, and try to make things themselves. To learn more, check out the article here.
While this is a Children's Museum of Houston-designed activity, we found some similar activies like the Cotton Reel Tanks Instructable created by LDW. Often, the materials and process for building our projects are designed for use with a large number of visitors (we see over 800,000 annually) and the need to ensure safety in a mostly non-facilitated environment. So, yes, many of these projects have room for improvement in both materials and methodology, which is PRECISELY what we want to encourage the kids to do. So please do share your ideas for improvement and modifications!
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Signing UpStep 1: What You Need:
- 1 – Hourglass Wood Spool (1-3/8" D x 1-15/16"H) - you can get at most craft stores. We get ours in bulk from Woodworks, Ltd.
- 1 - 1/4" x 9/16" Metal Washer - you can get these at your local hardware store
- 1 – Rubber Band, #16 - available at most office supply stores
- 1 – Chopstick - you can get these with your next Chinese takeout. We get ours in bulk from Asian Food Grocer
- 1 – Standard Paper Clip - available at most office supply stores. You can also use a toothpick, but you may need to trim it down a little.
- Masking Tape
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One of the best modifications is to cut tracks (V shape) in the spool every 1/4 inch. these could climb there way out hole dug in the ground, tossing dirt as it went. Elastic choice is important try a wider thicker band (experiment). Instead of tape, and paper clip we used a pin or small nail and cut a slot into the spool so it would not slip.
Given washers cost money. I would opt to take my mom’s sock darning wax and slick up the side it worked just fine.
We also added a second drive spool, wind them correctly so they go in the same direction, at that point you can add a paper car body taped to the chopstick.
I wasted many an hour modifying them and racing them up hill.
It is a lost art, given thread does not come on wooden spools, you have to go out and “buy” them. Mine came from my mothers sewing to keep 4 kids hand me downs going and the rod was from my Tinker Toy set.