Hello again!

So, as you probably know, in my PLP class at school, I was given the task to present a project of our choice, and the fun part: It needed to relate to Star Wars!! One of the first things we needed to do was create our driving question. Mine was “What can I create that will be a good example of a vehicle that can hover, like the 74-Z speeder bike?”. I filled out a sheet of information about my project. I was debating whether or not to use a small fan, but I thought it would be hard to control that.

After that, I started planning what my model would look like.

At first, I wasn’t really getting anywhere. I didn’t know what to do next, and I didn’t know what I just did to help the project. I only had some cardboard, tape, magnets, and the Lego version of a speeder bike, as you see below.

I tried a few times, but I didn’t have any success. The magnets were way too spaced out and they were VERY finicky and hard to control. Also showing with my project was a keynote that I made on my iPad, and it had slides of my progress. At this point, this is a slide that showed what I was thinking.

Now, I went to a smaller base so it would become more controlled, and it was better. I put magnets in the bottom of the box and small rectangular ones on the bottom of the speeder bike positioned so they would repel. It did repel, but I couldn’t let go of it otherwise it would twist around and fall into the box. Then I had an idea to put some fishing line that would go from the corners of the box to the speeder bike. I put them there not to hold the bike up, but to keep it from tipping.

It worked! The bike was hovering above the box! It wasn’t hovering very high, so I put two more big magnets in the bottom, and it shot up even more, and looked way better. I was happy with it! To make it look even better, I glued grass paper to the sides, and put another piece on top to show the terrain around it. It looked great. Here is my final product:

So, after all that, I answered my beginning question. I have created a model that shows a vehicle, like the speeder bike, hovering above ground without any assistance but magnets! I’m glad I did this project. I have learned about making a driving question, trial and error, answering my question, and now reflecting on it. The project was not only filled with learning and hard work, but it was also really fun to do!