Rubber Band Racing Cars

I m a huge race car fan so when we started experimenting with wheeled vehicles in our kid testing lab i knew just what i wanted to create.

Rubber band racing cars.

Using simple household materials and tools it was super easy to create a rubber band powered racer. Here are the items needed for your diy race car and the step by step directions for making a diy rubber band racer. After you make this clothespin car you might want to add this clothespin airplane and this rubber band car to. Project kit by kiwico.

Watch the video and decide for yourself. A clothespin car would make a great camp craft too. Rubber bands are a convenient and effective way to teach energy transformation and this rubber band car makes that lesson a blast. The kids can have races with their newly created toys.

Once you know the basics of building a rubber band car you can experiment with you own design and construction. Rubber band cars are a fun way to learn about motion propulsion and energy. Winding the rubber bands requires energy which is supplied by you. Build and race your ow.

A quick google search for rubber band car project yields tens of thousands of results so why reinvent the rubber band powered wheel the top results show cars with small wheels without traction or cd wheels which are difficult to attach to an axel both of. This rubber band car tutorial comes right out of the pages of one of my new books rubber band mania. With the rubber band cars the rubber used is made up of long polymer chains that in their natural state are all wrinkled up. Find this and all sorts of easy crafts for kids on this blog and pin or bookmark them for hours of fun.

This is probably one of our favorite rubber band toys we have made. It s a thicker cardboard and will definitely hold up better. When you let the rubber band racer go the stored energy in the tension of the rubber band is released and is transferred to the rear axle an application of the first law of thermodynamics. While you can certainly use a paper towel tube for your car i chose a sturdier tube that came from a box of aluminum foil.

It might be our favorite diy kid s toy we have made we ve made plenty of diy wooden cars too. It ended up being a really cool car. They are also fun to play with and race. Speaking of camp everyone remembers making a god s eye craft right.

The steps below require some adult assistance as we used an electric drill and a hot glue gun but our kid testers were happy to help with the other.