Implementing VEX GO STEM Labs
STEM Labs are designed to be the online teacher’s manual for VEX GO. Like a printed teacher’s manual, the teacher-facing content of the STEM Labs provides all of the resources, materials, and information needed to be able to plan, teach, and assess with VEX GO. The Lab Image Slideshows are the student-facing companion to this material. For more detailed information about how to implement a STEM Lab in your classroom, see the Implementing VEX GO STEM Labs article.
Goals and Standards
Goals
Students will apply
- How to collect and use data during an investigation.
- How to make and test predictions using data.
Students will make meaning of
- How gears make work easier through increasing speed or increasing power when meshed gears are of different sizes.
Students will be skilled at
- How to observe and record data.
- Identifying the effects of gear arrangement on speed and strength.
Students will know
- How simple machines, like gears, make work easier by increasing force as either speed or strength.
- How to conduct an investigation to collect data.
Objective(s)
Objective
- Students will predict the movements of gears based on data from previous testing.
- Students will investigate how gear arrangements can make work easier by increasing the speed or power of the other gears in the Clock.
- Students will understand how one gear controls the movement of another gear.
Activity
- In the Engage section, students will predict the number of gears needed to build the Clock. In Play Part 1, students will use their Data Collection Sheet to record how a driving gear affects the movement of the next meshed gear.
- In Play Part 1, students will observe and record how a driving gear affects the movement of the driven gear. They will use their Data Collection sheet to record the movement and size of the first seven gears on the Clock.
- In the Engage section, students will recognize the movement of gears and then explain how one gear moves with another gear through meshing.
Assessment
- During the Mid-Play Break, students will use the data gathered on the motion of gears in Play Part 1 to predict the motion of one additional gear to be tested in Play Part 2.
- In Play Part 2, students will test and observe the movement of the gears on the Clock. Students will add one additional gear to see how gears affect the Clock’s ability to do work through increasing speed or power.
- In the Mid-Play Break, students will explain patterns of gear movement based on the sizes of the driving and driven gears.