Lego Challenge–Wind Racers

Races are always good to do in Lego Club, and this is a great spin on that.  After we talked about rules, I told kids today that we would be making cars and racing them.  But there would be an added element since we would be racing with WIND POWER!  I then demonstrated with the car I built that was really small and fell over right away.  That got a laugh from the kids and kinda demonstrated the concept to them.

Prepping this was pretty easy.  I got a bunch of 1/4 inch thick wooden dowels, and cut them down so they were about 7 inches tall.  I told my kiddos that they had to find a way to attach their dowel to their car.  The easiest way to do this is just build a big chimney-like structure onto your car, and then stick your dowel in that.  I went around from table-to-table to make sure everyone was picking up what I was putting down 🙂

When they were done with their car, they had to cut out and decorate their sail, which was just cardstock.  When they were all done, they could come over to my table and, one at a time, we could test out their car with the fan.

Based on how well they did, I would tell them how to fix their cars.  If you want to incorporate your town’s Robotics Team into your Lego Club, this is a GREAT challenge for them to be involved with, since my city’s team came up with some great tips for the kids.

Kids will inevitably want to just keep practicing with the fan, so make sure that everyone gets a practice run in.  Maybe limit how many trial runs kids can get.  At the end of the hour, we raced two at a time.  But before we did that, I tried to remind everyone that this was just for fun and to not get too competitive.  It got a little crazy, but everyone was pretty respectful and orderly.  LOTS OF FUN!!  Thanks to Hand Made Kids Art for the inspiration.

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