Pasta Race Car Project

The 6A MSMS Students are Working on an Exciting New Project

The 6A students at Marshall Simonds Middle School have  been working hard on a very exciting project! It is called the Pasta Car Project and it takes place in three core subjects including science, math, and language arts.

Their procedure began in science with 6A earth science teacher, Mrs. Shea. The students had many different types of uncooked pasta to choose from including lasagna, rigatoni, and rotelle! They had to use their imaginations and a little glue to try to create the fastest pasta car in groups if three and four. They used scientific methods to figure out solutions and strategies in building the race cars.  

Their project continued in math with 6A math teacher, Mrs. Tate. The students learned about using the distance formula to find the time, distance and rate an object moves or makes progress in. Each group took turns rolling their cars down ramps made by one of the blocks in science. Each student had a special job. One student released the car and recorded data, one student measured the distance the car traveled, and one student timed how fast the car went. Next, using the energy formula, students calculated the kinetic and potential energy at the top and bottom of the ramps. The students discovered that the taller the ramp the faster the car went. The students also added the prices of all the pasta they used to find the total cost of their pasta car.

The final part of this project is taking place in language arts with the 6A language arts teacher, Mr. Conley. Students are in the midst of writing summaries about the entire project. The MSMS 6A students really enjoyed this project. As one student, Jenny L’Heureux, says “I liked doing the Pasta Car Project because it gave me a chance to be creative. It was fun to work with other kids and see how our ideas worked.”