Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

How can we build a battery and motor car for sixth grade students?

This is the small, model type cars.

Hi,

Here is an article on how to build an electric scooter car. It looks a little complicated for a sixth grade student to build without adult help, and I cannot vouch for how well the design works.

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/1677679/How ... ectric-Car

Here are instructions for a toy model car:

http://www.ehow.com/how_4910601_build-t ... c-car.html

This site has some general ideas but no plans:

http://www.instructables.com/answers/ca ... ctric-mot/

This site is more focused on building radio controlled cars, particularly from kits:

http://www.rccartips.com/

Here is a very rich site of science fair project idea pages on cars, with projects suited for different school grades. Scroll down the page to find an idea which interests you , then click on the red letters to access details:

http://www.juliantrubin.com/fairproject ... g/car.html

You may be interested in this document on designing solar toy cars:

http://www.nrel.gov/docs/gen/fy01/30828.pdf

I hope these resources get you thinking. This sounds like an interesting engineering project!!

Have fun,

Barrett L. Tomlinson