Wonderstruck Crawlers Workshop

A fantastic team-based, practical, competitive activity.

This workshop involves participants working in small teams (usually of three) to build and improve a 'Crawler'.

'What's a Crawler?'  I hear you ask.  Well, these are small vehicles that use geared motors to move themselves about.  As a result they move quite slowly but develop quite a lot of torque.  This means that they can deal with simple obstacles and will work outside on playing fields and any other rough terrain that schools have to offer.

The workshop introduction considers the idea of torque or 'twisting force' and we use a geared bicycle wheel to look at the relationship between speed and torque.  

In their teams, participants first build a prototype car to a set design.  They test this car by considering it's performance over a set range of obstacles and then try to improve it by using a range of different components.  These include wheels, battery packs and motors with different gear ratios.

The workshop has a short and a long version.  The short version lasts about 2 hours and uses the standard components mentioned above.  The long version lasts a full day and involves teams working to a budget and building their own wheels and bodies etc.  The longer version is generally available for KS3 students and above as it will involve using tools including hammers, screwdrivers and hot glue guns.

The whole session ends with an exciting time trial race off to find the ultimate champions (winners cups are supplied!).

This workshop is relatively new, so we are currently only running this with groups of 30 at a time but we do have plans to expand it.

Specific learning outcomes are differentiated according to the age group participating in the workshop.  With very young groups, for example, we may just focus on building the simple circuit and the idea of the propeller on the car producing a 'push' to make the car move.

In general, the activity involves:

• Working with simple circuits (can include series and parallel wiring in the longer version)
• Understanding the relationship between speed and torque in geared motors
• Understanding the role of friction and 'grip' in wheeled vehicles

·       We're happy to emphasise particular topic areas to tie in with your teaching - just let us know!

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The STEM Directory is provided as a service to support you in finding enrichment opportunities. The activities are offered by external providers and are not endorsed by STEM Learning. We are not responsible for their content or delivery.