We had an entire afternoon of physics on Tues. We made Marshmallow shooters with the GAHN homeschooling group. What fun! Everyone had a great time. The younger kids needed some adjusting to their shooters to make them work (we ended up just making theirs be straight with no bends so they could force the marshmallow out). The older boys created "clips" of marshmallows that they would swap out quickly and reload. They also got creative with the configuration of their piping.
Everyone started out with the same pieces and an example of how to make it. The older boys decided they would see what would happen when they made different twists and turns or if they loaded more than one marshmallow.
Then they shot for distance (although most of the shots were at each other!) One of the original rules was that you can't shoot your marshmallow into the mouth of someone else... no germ sharing please! So Josh decided he'd try to shoot his straight up and then catch his own marshamallow in his mouth. Only 3 cooperated enough to land in his mouth though!
One of the kids is allergic to the corn in marshmallows so she was shooting small craft "puff balls" - that worked well too! Great for when the kids have ingested enough sugar for the day!
Josh discovered, once we got home, that the Nerf suction tipped darts fit into the end of the shooter, so he spent time shooting those too. Oh, and then he and his friend Ben took it over to Ben's grandpa's house. They set the air compressor to the lowest psi setting and tested out how both marshmallows and the nerf darts worked with that - I think he said they went 10 feet or so!
Today the kids are still enamoured with these shooters. They split a big bag of marshmallows between them and had a "shootout" in the backyard. The girls took the fort and Josh was on the platform of the low slide. I really hope marshmallows don't make the dogs sick....
This has been a great physics lesson - I love how life provides all sorts of learning if you just let it happen!
Everyone started out with the same pieces and an example of how to make it. The older boys decided they would see what would happen when they made different twists and turns or if they loaded more than one marshmallow.
Then they shot for distance (although most of the shots were at each other!) One of the original rules was that you can't shoot your marshmallow into the mouth of someone else... no germ sharing please! So Josh decided he'd try to shoot his straight up and then catch his own marshamallow in his mouth. Only 3 cooperated enough to land in his mouth though!
One of the kids is allergic to the corn in marshmallows so she was shooting small craft "puff balls" - that worked well too! Great for when the kids have ingested enough sugar for the day!
Josh discovered, once we got home, that the Nerf suction tipped darts fit into the end of the shooter, so he spent time shooting those too. Oh, and then he and his friend Ben took it over to Ben's grandpa's house. They set the air compressor to the lowest psi setting and tested out how both marshmallows and the nerf darts worked with that - I think he said they went 10 feet or so!
Today the kids are still enamoured with these shooters. They split a big bag of marshmallows between them and had a "shootout" in the backyard. The girls took the fort and Josh was on the platform of the low slide. I really hope marshmallows don't make the dogs sick....
This has been a great physics lesson - I love how life provides all sorts of learning if you just let it happen!
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