Motion and Design
5th Grade
Inquiry-Based Science Module
PowerPoint created by AMSTI trainers
Date
Lesson 1A: Motion and Design KWL
Question: What do you KNOW about Motion and Design?
What do you WONDER about Motion and Design?
Big Ideas
1. Physics explains and predicts the motion of
objects.
2. Energy is the ability to make objects move. It
is never created nor destroyed, but merely
changes forms.
3. The laws of physics are used in a costeffective way to achieve efficient and
purposeful designs.
Date
Lesson 1B: Exploring the Pieces
•Materials Manager –
get tub/ bucket of
materials
•Get each piece on
sheet and color
(Optional).
Date
Lesson 1B: Exploring the Pieces
This is your time to
“Free Explore”
the building pieces.
Have fun!
What did you discover
during “free exploration”
of the building pieces?
How do the pieces fit together?
“Tips on Using Building Pieces”
(From time to time, the vendor
changes the colors of the building
pieces. Look at the SIZE and
SHAPE of the pieces.)
Team Challenge:
In 20 minutes or less, design and
build a vehicle that will move at
least 100 cm (39 in).
How will you test whether your vehicle meet the requirements?
Keep in mind that this is our “getting started”
lesson. You will have many opportunities
throughout the unit to design, build, and test
how vehicles move.
o
DO NOT TAKE THIS APART. WE WILL USE THIS VEHICLE IN LESSON 2.
Team Challenge Race!
Vehicle Name
Distance
Traveled (cm)
Observations
Newton's First Law of Motion
An object in motion tends to remain in
motion, and an object at rest tends to
remain at rest.
If you were out in space and you gave a rock a push,
its momentum would keep the rock moving at the
same speed in the same direction until it bumped into
something. On the other hand, if you put a rock in
space and left it there not moving, its inertia would
keep it right there, hanging in space, forever (or until
something bumped into it or it came under
gravitational or magnetic pull). On Earth, objects
don't really remain in motion, because friction slows
them down, and gravity pulls them toward the ground.
Question: How can we use drawings to record and build
vehicles?
How do engineers use drawings?
Engineers use science and math to plan,
design, and construct products. They
often sketch their ideas and plans before
they build. They also make detailed
records of their products after building
them, either by drawing them or using
computer graphics, so the products can be
studied and improved.
You will follow similar activities.
0
Materials Manager, please get
the following materials:
•Your vehicles from previous lesson
•Colored pencils
•Rulers
•Circle templates
0
Using graph paper:
•Draw your group’s vehicle
•from Lesson One.
•Be sure to date your drawing. Glue your
drawing into your Science Notebook.
•Writing a description of your drawing in your
Science Notebook.
0
Three-view Drawing
You now have a permanent
record of your first design!
Materials Manager: please pick up your tub/
bucket of building pieces.
Your team now needs to:
•Take apart your vehicle
•Put all materials back
in the bucket.
0
Analyzing your drawings and
descriptions:
If you were to build the same
vehicle again, what features
on the drawing would make it
easy to build?
0
Let’s Build Again!
Standard Vehicle: Figure 2-2.
(This is also in your Student Investigations Book and TG.)
Examine the
technical drawing
and decide which
pieces you need to
build the vehicle. If
it will help you, you
may color-code your
drawing.
The Standard Vehicle
(Front- fixed axle. Axle does not go
through yellow center in the front).
Figure 2-2
You will be using this
standard vehicle in your
investigations for the next
six lessons.
0
Final Activities:
Let’s all display our vehicles.
Do they all look alike?
Why?
0
Final Activities, cont.
•Compare your first drawing with the technical drawing.
•How is your own drawing similar to or different from the
technical drawing?
•On the technical drawing, what do you notice about the two
views of the vehicle? How are they alike? How are they
different?
•What parts of the technical drawing might make it easy
for you to build this vehicle? What parts might make it
difficult?
•How does color help in a drawing?
•Which drawing (your own or the technical one) might
be easier to use if you needed to build 100 copies of
a single model? Why?
0
Reading Selection:
“The Race That Wasn’t Run”
Think about how you felt when
building your vehicle in Lesson
1. How might your feelings be
like those of Bobby Rahal and
his design team?
0
Lesson 3: Pulling a Vehicle: Looking at Force
Question: What is force? How will it affect the motion of your
vehicle?
Hypothesis: I think force is _______________. If you add force
to our vehicle, then_____________.
Plan: Student Investigations Book p. 15-16.
Observations: Record Sheet 3-A
Pulling a Vehicle: Looking at Force
Use the handouts to complete the activity. Copy
the chart into your science notebooks.
Answer the following questions in your
science journal:
 When did you observe your vehicle begin to move?
 What caused your vehicle to move?
 Did the vehicle move differently when you changed
the weight? Why do you think this happened?
 What make the vehicle stop moving each time?
 Why did you use the bookend? Did you need it each
time? Why or why not?
 For each different weight you used, how would you
describe the motion of the vehicle?
Lesson 3 continued.
Conclusion: Force is a push or a pull. The effect of the
force on the motion of the vehicle depends on the size
and direction of the force. In this investigation, the
vehicle was pulled by the force of gravity, which acts on
the weighted string and pulls the weight forward. Adding
washers to our vehicles made our vehicles move faster.
Reflection:
Review: Newton's First Law of Motion
An object in motion tends to remain in
motion, and an object at rest tends to
remain at rest.
If you were out in space and you gave a rock a push,
its momentum would keep the rock moving at the
same speed in the same direction until it bumped into
something. On the other hand, if you put a rock in
space and left it there not moving, its inertia would
keep it right there, hanging in space, forever (or until
something bumped into it or it came under
gravitational or magnetic pull). On Earth, objects
don't really remain in motion, because friction slows
them down, and gravity pulls them toward the ground.
Newton's Second Law of Motion
Force equals mass times
acceleration. To move a mass, you
have to have force.
 You can tell how hard a moving object is going
to hit by knowing how big it is (how much mass
it has) and how fast it is speeding up (its
acceleration).
 For instance, if the pitcher throws the ball to
the catcher, how hard it hits the catcher's glove
depends on how much mass the ball has and
whether it is speeding up or slowing down
when it gets to the glove. You can make
something hit harder either by making it bigger
or by throwing it faster.

Newton's Third Law of Motion
For every action there is an equal
and opposite reaction.
Everything moves relative to everything
else. If you push somebody, the push
forces her backwards, but it also forces
you backwards - that's the equal and
opposite reaction. Sometimes the thing
you're pushing against is so big that you
don't notice the reaction (like if you are
pushing off from the ground, the Earth is
too big for you to see the reaction), but it is
still there.

Think and Record
Question: How will adding
blocks to your vehicles change
the way the vehicles move?
Record your predictions in your
Science Notebook.
0
Materials You Need:
• 1 pencil
• 1 copy of Record Sheet 4-A: Graphing Data
• 1 standard vehicle
• 1 string with paper clip hooks
• 16 small metal washers
• 2 blocks of wood
• 1 bookend
• 1 each red, blue, green pencils
0
Think and Record
How could you change your
vehicle so that it would hold two
blocks of wood while it moves?
Record your ideas in your
Science Notebook.
0
Mass
Weight
To make it fair…
In this lesson all of us will attach
the blocks in the same manner.
0
To make it fair…
Each team will use a timer to
measure how long it takes your
vehicles to move in each trial.
Using consistent tools, you will
be able to compare results.
Materials Manager needs to get a
timer from the distribution center.
0
Using your timer:
Practice starting and stopping the timer.
What do the large-and small-number
displays on the time represent? 0
Student Instructions for Testing the Motion of Vehicles Carrying a Load
1. Set up the falling-weight system as you did in Lesson 3.
2. Add two blocks to your vehicle. Squeeze the crossbars
to make certain the blocks are held in place.
0
Testing the Motion of Vehicles Carrying a Load
Remember: Stop the timer when the
weights hit the floor.
Record Sheet 4-A: Graphing Data
0
Complete the investigation by following the
student instructions on pgs. 20 – 22 of the
Student Investigations Book.
•
Be sure to use the colored pencils to
fill in the appropriate circles on the
line plot on Record Sheet 4-A.
•
Keep the number of washers the
same for each trial.
• Change only the load carried by the
vehicle.
0
Looking at Results:
1. What did you observe when testing various loads
(blocks)?
2. How did the vehicle move when it was loaded
with two blocks?
3. How did the motion of the vehicle change when
you removed one block?
4. How did it change when you removed both
blocks?
5. What do you think would happen if you added a
third or fourth blocks to the vehicle?
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Looking at Results, cont.:
6. When the vehicle carried no blocks, what was
left to influence its motion? (the weight of the
vehicle)
7. What can you conclude about the effects of
load (such as blocks) on a vehicle’s motion?
8. What situations at home or in school may be
similar to what you tested in this lesson?
0
Materials Manager: Return all materials to
the distribution center. Make sure:
• To carefully wrap your string around
the cardboard so it does not tangle.
• Return all washers to their cup.
0
Discuss Question: What happens when you add
a load to your vehicle? Does it speed up or
does it slow down?
Conclusion/ Reflection: The larger the load, the
slower the speed of the vehicle when a
constant force is applied (gravity/washer). The
larger load has more mass, therefore, more
inertia, requiring a greater force to get it
moving than if the load were small.
Next Step/ New Questions:
Date
Lesson 5: Designing Vehicles to Meet
Requirements
Question: How can you design vehicles to meet the
following requirements? (Design Challenge)
Hypothesis:
Plan:
Observations: (Write about your vehicle and draw it.)
Conclusion/ Reflection: (Write a conclusion)
Next Steps/ New Questions: