St Joe's Blog

St Joe's Blog

Monday 17 December 2012

Penny Racers

 In Science Y5C have been investigating whether a penny affects a Penny Racer's performance.



Penny Racers are small toy cars popular in the 1980's.  They were advertised as the only toy cars powered by coins and that putting a penny in your toy car made it better.  So to coincide with our project 'Show me the money', we decided to see what affect a penny made on these racers.

We tested if a coin makes a difference to a Penny Racer.  I found out that with a coin, it doesn’t go straight and it’s slower because the coin puts on weight to the car.  Without a coin it just goes straight and doesn’t turn.  I think with a coin it’s better because it’s more fun doing tricks.
By Luke

I found out that when we tried the Penny Racer with the penny it did more turns and tricks. I think this is because the 1p coin gave weight to the Penny Racer, it would flip over because there was less weight on the other side.  Also I found that when you put the 1p coin to the left it made the car turn to the left. I think this happened because if you add weight to the left the other sides wheels would come off the ground making the left sides wheels turn in a half circle.
By Alfie

We had lots of fun investigating.  One group had the clever idea of painting the wheels of the Penny Racer to enable them to keep a record of the car's tracks/performance. 



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