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This past week for STOMP our classroom put on our Mechanical Engineer hats and continued our exploration of car building with Lego's. This was our last week using the Simple Machine's Kits, so we wanted to make sure that they had really learned how the bricks fit together to make a sturdy structure that could move. We talked about Potential and Kintetic energy and how those forces come into play when rolling a car down a ramp. We also talked about how gravity is a force that pulls the car down a ramp and that friction is a force that causes the cars to stop rolling after the cars travel off the ramp. We had a simple worksheet where the kids had to determine whether cars at certain positions on a ramp had potential energy, kinetic energy or both. Once they built the cars, we tested how far they went and talked about ways they could make their cars go faster (ie. adding more weight, adjusting the wheels, etc.) We also had them try to build cars that would hold a little action figure and looked more like a real car with a center structure. The kids enjoyed building the cars and were very excited and energetic while testing the cars. They had a bit of trouble learning how to work with their partners to make the cars instead of making individual cars, but we explained to them that working in a team is part of being an engineer. Eventually most of the groups were able to collaborate their ideas to make an awesome car.