You will need
- 2 empty 1.5L soda bottles
- 2 cork kitchen pot stands (1 cm thick)
- 2 wooden chopsticks (27 cm long)
- 2 takeaway containers
- Sticky tape
- 5 supermarket catalogues (app. 1mm thick ea.)
Note: You can substitute them with other materials with similar lengths and thicknesses. - Optional: A protractor to measure the angles
Cut the soda bottles at the edge of their label.
Tape the conical parts o the soda bottle together.
Place two takeaway containers upside down, about 26cm apart.
Put both of the pot stands on one container and two catalogues on the other (the number of catalogues or pot stands will vary dependent on the thickness of the at catalogues that you use)
Put the chopsticks on the pot stands and the catalogues in V shape. The ends on the pot stands are 12cm apart and the other ends are 6 cm apart. Fix them in place using sticky tape.
Your chopstick ramp should now be at an angle (you could measure this with a protractor).
Now it’s time to try your double cone roller!
- Carefully place the double cones on the lower side of the chopsticks.
- Can your double cone roll uphill (or is this really an illusion)?
This may need several trials to make it roll, whereby you will need to alter the angle of the ramp by either changing the number of the catalogues or pot stands to modify the slope.
Get the Unit of Work on Forces here!
- Push, pull
- Friction & spin!
From inertia to centripetal force, this unit covers many concepts about Newton’s Laws!
Includes cross-curricular teaching ideas, student quizzes, a sample marking rubric, scope & sequences & more
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What is going on?
The centre of mass will roll down the incline due to the gravitational force. In this case, the centre of mass is on the line connecting the centres of the coke caps (look at step 2). The conical shape allows the double cone to sink toward the wider end of the V-shape rails due to its centre of mass. Therefore, although its centre of mass is moving down, it creates an illusion that the double cone looks like it rolls uphill.
Variables to test
- Does it matter if you have small or large soda bottles?
- Vary the width of the ‘V-shape’ of the chopsticks.
- Vary the angle of the chopstick ramps
- What happens if you replace the chopsticks with another material?
Forces, Friction & Movement
Years K to 6
Maximum 30 students
School workshop
60 or 90 minutes
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