Wonderstruck Hovercraft Workshop

An exciting team-based, practical, competitive activity.

This workshop involves participants working in small teams (usually of three) to build and improve a fast-moving model hovercaft.

The session starts with an introduction to the science behind the activity.  With the assistance of a volunteer we can use the Wonderstruck Hoverchair to demonstrate the working principles of a hovercraft.  We also cover energy transformations, force and acceleration, friction and the idea of fair tests and the purpose of taking multiple results and averaging.

In their teams, participants first build a prototype hoverdraft to a set design.  Building the prototype is all about learning how the hovercraft works, how to get it moving in a straight line and why it tends not to move in a straight line.  Once they've got some experience of hovercraft construction and operation teams can modify their machine with different battery packs, propellers etc to make it go as fast as possible.

A well made hovercraft can really shift.  If you have access to a Sports Hall type space for testing and you set your hovercraft off at one end, if it's travelling in a straight line, by the time it reaches the centre of the hall it will be travelling too fast to catch!

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

We can run this workshop with up to 60 participants and with age groups from 11 to adult.

The standard version of the workshop takes about 2.5 hours with 60 participants.  We can run this workshop with larger groups but we'd need to have a chat about the organisation of how we deliver this as testing and racing the hovercraft requires access to a hall space throughout the duration of the workshop.

We also offer a whole day version of the workshop for older/more able participants where teams are equipped with budgets and get to design their Mark 2 hovercraft from scratch, designing and building their own hovercraft bodies, experimenting with multiple motor set ups, etc.  The competition at the end of this version of the workshop involves teams giving presentations about their hovercraft as well as racing them.

Specific learning outcomes are differentiated according to the age group participating in the workshop.  With older groups we may introduce the concept of torque and talk about how the motor used to inflate the skirt applies a reverse torque on the hovercraft body which tends to twist it in the opposite drirection to the rotation of the motor.

In general, the activity involves:

• Working with simple circuits
• Understanding the relationship between forces and motion
• Understanding that friction always acts to slow things down
• Understanding the basic idea of Newton's Third Law of Motion
• Using the relationship between speed, distance and time to calculate average speed

 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.