Year 4’s Balloon Car Grand Prix

As part of our topic Incredible Inventions and with links to our science topic of forces, Year 4 have been making balloon powered cars, using recycled bottles.

We started by adding shafts for axles, cutting axles and fitting wooden wheels, adding a blow tube and finally adding a balloon to power our vehicle.

The grand finale was to visit the hall where the children lined up in pole position to race their vehicle. We had a few minor glitches, with some vehicles deciding on a trajectory of their own, but three clear winners emerged. These were Makaiyla, Julia and Harry.

As you can see from the pictures below the children used their DT skills to good effect and had to think carefully about the forces acting on their vehicles and also ways in which they could improve their designs.

{besps}classes/y4/balloon19{/besps}