Lesson 8 of 30 · Simple Machines

Experiment⭐ 30 XP🛠️ Engineer Shop

Carpet Slows the Ball

🧪Lab Brief #8

Simple Machines.

🎯 Your mission

Set it up. Test it. Be amazed.

⚡ The twist

Constraints make you more creative, not less.

🤯

Mind = Blown

🛠️ The first computer bug was a literal moth stuck inside a machine in 1947.

🔮

Make a hypothesis first

Before you test: how many tries until it works?

What You'll Learn

When you roll a ball on carpet, it stops faster than on a smooth floor. That is friction!

Key Words

Tap a word to see its definition.

Materials Needed

ramps

Safety First

Have an adult check your set-up before you start, and tidy everything away afterwards.

Steps

Step 1 — Read

Say the vocabulary words out loud. Can you repeat them?

Step 2 — Do

Roll a ball down a ramp. Try making the ramp steeper. What happens?

Step 3 — Observe

Look closely! What do you see?

Step 4 — Record

Draw a picture of what you learned today.

Check Your Understanding

Question 1

1 of 3

What makes a ball roll?

How sure are you going to be?😐 maybe

🌍

Where you see this in real life

Every bridge, building, and gadget you've ever used started with this.

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Stretch Challenge

Try this in real life this week.

Find something that's broken at home and try to figure out *why* it broke.

👨‍👩‍👧

For the dinner table

“What's something around the house you'd redesign — and how?”

🎯

Next Smart Experiment

We'll pick an experiment that matches exactly how you're thinking right now.

🪨Share card

Share this experiment

Send it to a parent who's looking for a 10-minute kitchen science win.

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Ready?