Laura K. (LauraK) reviewed How to Build a Better Mousetrap Car and Other Experimental Science Fun on
From the inside flap:
Here is an invitation to experimental fun for the curious model builder. It encourages novel designs, with models to be rebuilt again and again, so that all the best conditions and properties can be discovered and used in a superior model.
And instead of just displaying that superior model, builders are urged to use them in friendly competitions which really test the designs - races, relays, tournaments. So try your hand at milk carton windmills, mousetrap cars, packaging an egg so it will drop without breaking, making a fire with a fire box, building paper plate Frisbees and toothpick bridges.
All projects are built from easily obtained and inexpensive materials. They can be used by elementary science classes, as well as by individual experimenters. It's all experimental fun - with a challenge to make a model that works best.
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The author of this book has spent most of his teaching career either teaching science or teaching teachers to teach science. He has been a science consultant to many school systems in Southern California.
Here is an invitation to experimental fun for the curious model builder. It encourages novel designs, with models to be rebuilt again and again, so that all the best conditions and properties can be discovered and used in a superior model.
And instead of just displaying that superior model, builders are urged to use them in friendly competitions which really test the designs - races, relays, tournaments. So try your hand at milk carton windmills, mousetrap cars, packaging an egg so it will drop without breaking, making a fire with a fire box, building paper plate Frisbees and toothpick bridges.
All projects are built from easily obtained and inexpensive materials. They can be used by elementary science classes, as well as by individual experimenters. It's all experimental fun - with a challenge to make a model that works best.
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The author of this book has spent most of his teaching career either teaching science or teaching teachers to teach science. He has been a science consultant to many school systems in Southern California.
