Marble Run Explanation

Marble Run

In Kete class we have been constructing marble run tracks, and completing challenges, such as longest time, longest distance, and the latest one being highest point from the ground. We have been doing this to learn about all the forces that act on the marble. I will now explain what I have learnt about the forces from doing the marble run.

We may not realise it but forces work around us all the time, and they are very important in our lives. We are so used to having forces work around us, that we may not even know about it. What are forces? A force is is any interaction that will change the motion of an object. There are many different kinds of forces, and they all do different things to the world. The forces I will be talking about are, push, pull, gravity, friction, air resistance, motion, accelerate, unbalanced force, balanced force, potential energy, and kinetic energy. All of these forces played a part in the marble run.

Push. Push wasn’t one of the main forces in the marble run, but it played an important part in the start. What is push? Push is when you apply pressure against something, or someone, and move it away from you. At the start, we had to push the marble in order to make it move throughout the track. If we didn’t push it, it wouldn’t move… pretty self explanatory right?

Pull. Pull is the opposite of push. It’s a force that works when you grip onto something and put force on it to make it go towards you. We didn’t really use pull on the marble run, because after we let go of the marble, we couldn’t touch it anymore, and we wanted the marble to go forward, and pulling it back wouldn’t help.

Gravity. Gravity is what help make the marble keep going down, and on the track. If it would stop somewhere in the middle, or the marble fell off the edge, we would have to stop the timer there. Gravity helped the marble to stay on the track, and go down without flying off into the air.

Friction. Friction is what made the marble go slower in some parts of the track. For example, the plastic doors slowed down the marble because it created friction between itself and the marble. Without friction, the marble would have been speeding down the track, which could be good in some cases, but bad in others. Since it would be going fast, it would probably fall off.

Air Resistance. Air resistance is basically friction from air. It is what slows you down while being in air. This force wasn’t really used in this marble run, because it was on a track, not really in the air.

Motion. Motion is when an object or person is moved by a force. Motion was used throughout the track, and lots of forces were working on the marble, which made it move and get to the end of the track. Without motion, nothing would move. Quite obvious, right?

Accelerate. Accelerate is when an object picks up energy while moving. By adding more pieces to the track, and put them in a good order, the marble was able to pick up acceleration, and it kept going until the end of the track.

Unbalanced force. Unbalanced force is when two forces acting on an object are not equal in size. This could be applied to our track. Our track was not straight, but it went down, so that the marble could easily roll down by itself.

Balanced force. Balanced force is the opposite of an unbalanced force. It is when two forces acting on an object are equal in size. Our marble track stayed still, and it made the marble go down the track without the tracks falling apart.

Potential energy. Potential, meaning that something has a capacity to do something. Potential energy is energy that an object and/or person has from its position or state. Our marble had potential energy at the start, because of its position. When we let it go, it went down.

Kinetic energy. Kinetic energy is when an object and/or person collects energy while in motion. This is what our marble was doing. While going down, as it went, it was collecting kinetic energy to keep going down. We needed kinetic energy to make the marble keep going and pick up speed. Picking up speed could be both bad and good in some cases. For example, good if we were doing the fastest time challenge, but bad because it would have a good chance of falling off the track.

There are many forces acting on things everywhere, and these were the forces that were acting on our marble. Now you know what forces are acting on the marble, how they were acting on them, and why we needed them. When you get a chance to try construct a marble track, you will know what forces are acting on them…