Every Superhero needs a cape, but which material flies best in the wind? this super simple science activity allows kids to channel their inner superhero and make the perfect flowing cape!
This activity is also part of my playful science series full of simple and playful science for kids!
Superhero Cape Experiment
Challenge – to make a wonderful flowing cape for a superhero
Planning the experiment
Variables
Materials to make the cape with – paper/foil/cotton/fleece
Size of superhero cape.
How to test?
Run wearing each superhero cape and record how high it flies
Which factors do we need to keep constant?
Size of cape
Speed of running – distance ran
Person testing
Possible causes of errors
Changes in wind
Properties of a good cape
Light, strong, flies well in the wind when running.
Can you think of anything we’ve missed?
We made 4 superhero capes the same size using different materials and then a couple of bigger and smaller ones to see if that made a difference. Observations were recorded after watching the cape fly when running.
Some were a little more heavily decorated than others, the extra weight of this one made it not fly very well.
This smaller cape didn’t fly so well.
The super light foil cape, flew better than anything else.
We concluded that the best capes for flying were light and long, the foil cape flew the best, but this cape was also weak and broke easily.
More superhero science experiments
Find out how to make a superhero float!
Make disgustingly icky Superhero Slime!
Last Updated on July 16, 2021 by Emma Vanstone
Almost Unschoolers
Fun! The neighbor boys were running around with emergency “space” blanket capes the other day – those looked pretty cool, too.
stephanie
My son is so into superheroes right now! This is fantastic!! Thanks for sharing at After School!