Welcome to the Elf toy making workshop! Your challenge is to design and build a balancing toy. A balancing toy can stand up on a tiny stand. Use your engineering and imagination to build a snowman or elf toy that seems to balance magically!
Elf Balancing STEM Toy Challenge
You’ll need
Wooden skewers/toothpicks or straws
A cork or piece of carrot
Play dough
Christmas decorations and craft items
Instructions
Place a piece of wooden skewer about 2 inches long into the bottom of the cork.
Place the cork on the end of your finger or on the top of a bottle with a lid. It will fall over.
Push the pointed end of two skewers into opposite sides of the cork and place a blob of play dough on the opposite ends.
Test to see if the cork balances. Add or remove play dough to each skewer until it stops falling over.
Extension Task
Add more skewers or straws or thin wire. Remember, both sides have to balance.
Why does it work
The cork elf stays balanced when its centre of mass is directly above the skewer. Gravity pulls downwards, and if the centre of mass isn’t lined up over the skewer at the bottom, it creates a turning force that tips the balancing toy over.
Adding skewers and play dough changes the centre of mass of the cork. By adjusting the skewers and play dough bit by bit, we brought the centre of mass back over the bottle and the skewer at the bottom, keeping the elf balanced.
Top Tips
Keep it simple! First, build a basic balancing toy, and then add extra parts if you want to make it more complex.
Give children a variety of different materials to create with.
Make it fun! Include festive decorations, bells and other Christmas themed materials.
More elf activity ideas
Make frost appear on the side of a can, a rainbow of colour appear in water and more cheeky elf experiments!
Set up a flying elf hat STEM challenge. This is a great activity for younger children, who will love watching the elf hats fly.
Always supervise children with sharp materials.
Last Updated on December 12, 2024 by Emma Vanstone
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