A toddler pushes a plastic car across the floor. A young boy struggles to pull a wagon loaded with wooden blocks. A girl notices that her bicycle wheel rubs on the fender, making the bike difficult to ride. From an early age, children experience the principles of motion when they play with wheeled toys or use vehicles for recreation.
Children are also natural designers and builders.
They play with whatever materials are at hand and experiment freely to try out their ideas. Children who have access to building sets learn to manipulate the parts, make changes to an object they have built, or add interesting features to it. Motion and Design combines these two interests of young children. It enables students to analyze the motion of vehicles they have built, investigate how forces affect a vehicle's motion, and design vehicles that are propelled by stored energy. Lesson 1 is designed to reveal to the students, and those working with them, what they already know and what questions they have about motion and design.