Marble Run

Hello, fellow people, I have come from the land of....... Okay screw that, today I will be telling you about our experiment we did in term 2 about Marbles. This was basically about how a marble rolls down a course. So we had to go in groups and create an obstacle course for the marble to run on. Then we had to do a writing about it and how the marble stops and goes. \

Here is my writing, hope you learn something!

Marble Run Explanation

Introduction

What is a marble run you say? How does it a marble run work? Well today we are going see what
makes a marble run, and what is the science behind it.  In our class we had a challenge of who could
build a construction and have the longest time to hold the marble on the course, that is made out of
plastic pieces.  

How it works

The way that a marble run works is when the marble rolls down a stacked construction of plastic
curves.  To make a marble run works is when you have the right size or marble and the right
construction. Some problems with the marble is when the marble flies out of the construction and when
the construction falls down.  

Building a Marble run  

The marble run is built on steep and curvy plastics that is strong enough to hold the marble.  The way
to hold a marble run on the construction for a longer time is to make the construction higher, but also
stable or, use curvy pieces to slow the marble down. Another suggestion is making the marble run
long and with books to make the construction stable.  Now we have sorted out the construction, now
it is time to pick the right marble to go on our marble run. My personal suggestion is to have the right
size to fit inside of the pieces and also have the marble that has the right weight to go down faster or
slower.  

Gravity and Acceleration

Gravity I wonder how it works on a marble run, well gravity works on a marble run by using the marble
and pushing it down on gravity, what I mean is how the marble falls down during the course.  Next we a
re gonna talk about the acceleration of the marble, meaning how the marble gains speed during the
marble run. The marble run actually gains speed when there is a straight plastic pieces constructed
on the course, it also gains speed when the piece on the construction are steep meaning when it
goes down.  But when the marble is to fast it often goes flying out of the course, so be careful on where
your putting on the steep pieces.

Friction

The marble stopped, but how come it stops, well it stops because of friction, friction means when
you stop, either when going fast or slow.  But going slow on the marble is more affected to friction,
than the fast one. This can happen in the course when the marble is slow, because that is when
the marble is about to stop.   Friction is also connected to the word acceleration, they are similar
to each other because they are the opposite of each other. There is also another reason why the
marble stops it is also because of the construction of the marble run.  

Kinetic Energy and Potential Energy

What is the energy that a marble presents, and why does marbles need energy to roll, well it is
because a marble need energy to more around.  There are two types of energy that the marble run
possess, and those are Kinetic energy and potential energy. Kinetic energy means the energy
when the marble is moving and is on motion also meaning when the marble is rolling the course.  
Potential energy is when the marble is in motion or not moving, also meaning when the marble
has stopped or is stuck on the course.

Class challenge, Why are we doing this?

We a.re doing this because we want to know more about the energy and how the marble run works.  
Meanwhile in our class we had a challenge in groups on who can build a marble run and make
the marble stay on the construction longer.  The highest record would be 55.3 second, the
construction they built was by using the old fashion marble run piece. The one they made was
special because it had pieces that looked like a sinkholes which takes longer to go down.  

Conclusion

So in conclusion, the marble run works by using energy, weight, gravity, acceleration, friction and
the last one is the most important one is the pieces of the construction.   During our class challenge,
we had a fun time creating and learning things together. Even though my groups only got 10
seconds we tried our best and had fun.