Balancing Act

  Primary | Energy | Views: 698

​You will Need:

• Lollipop stick
• Chopstick
• Pipe Cleaner
• 2 clothes pegs
• Book or something heavy to put on top

What to Do:

1. Place the lollipop stick at the centre of your pipe cleaner.
2. Wrap the pipe cleaner around the lollipop stick a couple of times, ensuring that you have equal lengths of pipe cleaner left on each side.
3. On either end of the pipe cleaner, attach a clothes peg – this is your balancing contraption!
4. Place a chopstick on a flat surface and add something heavy to keep it in place, like a book.
5. Carefully balance your contraption on the chopstick and adjust it until you find the centre of gravity!
6. Let go and watch the gravitational energy hold it in place!
7. Try to create a similar contraption, replacing the clothes pegs with objects of a similar weight.

How it Works:

The energy at work here is gravitational energy. This type of energy is potential energy, or stored energy. The energy is stored in the objects that are above the earth’s surface.

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