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And on it, 12-year-old Wyatt Smith became a champion.
“Wow, that was cool,” said Wyatt, a sixth-grader. “Did you see how fast my car went?”
Wyatt’s small CO2-powered hand-made dragster cleared a 60-foot stretch of the hall in 1.8 seconds – tops among his classmates in a week-long program that teaches STEM subjects – science, technology, engineering and math – in a fun and somewhat competitive way.
“Every one of them has been so engaged and pumped and excited with this project,” said sixth-grade teacher Lisa Haynes. “They’ve learned aerodynamics, engineering, lift, thrust, weight, drag and everything that makes a race car work.”
The program was taught at Keicher by the Shop Rat Foundation, a Jackson County nonprofit group that offers hands-on, project-based manufacturing education programs for kids.
“This is a free engineering project that’s intended to reach every sixth-grader in Jackson County,” said Kelly Burr, Shop Rat Foundation operations director. “Kids love racing and this shows them there are a lot of careers associated with racing beyond driving the car.”
During the first two days of the project, students learned about aerodynamics and engineering design. They used their knowledge to design their own car on graph paper.
“I like to build stuff,” said 12-year-old Nick Roy. “I decided to use a small front and a bigger back end. I watched some races on TV and the cars like that seemed to win more. I think I’ll be watching the races a lot differently now after this.”
Next, the students’ designs were applied as templates to blocks of wood that, with help from a band saw, were transformed into a race car. They added axles and wheels and sanded, painted and detailed their finished racers.
“I called mine The Fusion,” Wyatt said. “I figured it would have a lot of boost.”
Alexis Lindsay, 12, came in second to Wyatt with a time of 2.8 seconds.
“This was really fun,” she said. “I didn’t have any secrets in my design. It was just kind of random, but it worked.”
The race times and weights of the cars also were used after the races in science and math lessons where students analyzed rates of speed against weight, mass, force and principles of acceleration.
“I love everything about this, from cutting out the car to the race,” said 11-year-old Brady Walker.
STEM instruction is encouraged and endorsed by the state and U.S. departments of education as a way to boost student performance now and get kids ready for jobs in the future.
The Shop Rat Foundation has used this program to teach Western School District sixth-graders for three years. This was its first visit to Keicher. The program is available to all sixth-grade classes in Jackson County, Burr said. To find out more, visit the group’s website at www.shoprat.org.