Simple Machines
Intro Text: pages 156-174. 5 day unit.
Conceptual Text: pages 111-177. 2 day unit.
OBJECTIVES
After completing this section, students will be able to:
1. explain why we use machines, and compare and contrast a simple and a compound machine,
2. name the six simple machines, and identify them in use in various common tools,
3. Recognize and differentiate between the 3 types of levers,
4. apply formulas to compute the efficiency and mechanical advantage of pulley and ramps, and levers,
5. explain how the use of a machine does not violate the law of conservation of energy.
Activities
1. An exercise in which students identify the simple machines in various tools
2. Mechanical Advantage Practice problems. Sheet 1 and sheet 2.
2. A web lesson.
3. Identification of simple machines in BattleBots (watching a video)
WEB RESOURCES
To optimize machine performance, close each hyperlink window when finished with the site.
1. Divinci's machines http://www.mos.org/sln/Leonardo/InventorsToolbox.html
2. Edhead's http://edheads.org/activities/simple-machines/index.htm
3. COSI applet http://www.cosi.org/onlineExhibits/simpMach/sm1.html
4. How a bicycle works http://travel.howstuffworks.com/bicycle.htm
A Webquest http://outreach.rice.edu/~dgabby/science/simp_mach/
The Battlebots http://www.battlebots.com/meet_the_robots/meet_search.asp