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4-PAS17

Keepy-Uppy In the Car: Why don't objects hit you when thrown or dropped in the car?

Physics and Astronomy
Joseph Hennig

Grade:
4
Teacher:
Tamara Westberg

Why can you throw or drop things in the car and it lands back in your hand, but bugs hit the car while we are driving? So why doesn’t the dropped object hit us when we are driving? Seatbelts are important because without them by now you would probably already have a few scars on your head! Because sometimes we don’t do a good job stopping and you might fly forward. But seatbelts hold you down and keep you from hitting the window. We do collision testing to see what happens when car accidents happen. So hopefully, they don’t hurt as bad. That’s also why we have air bags so that we do not slam our head into the steering wheel. But we need collision dummies so that we can see if the air bags hurt us more than the steering wheel. But, we want to understand why these things happen and it’s called inertia.


Project presentation

View Project Presentation file

Lab journal excerpts

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3 thoughts on “Keepy-Uppy In the Car: Why don’t objects hit you when thrown or dropped in the car?

  1. Joseph, I really enjoyed your research and investigation. I was so impressed with your hand drawn models and all your data graphs and charts. You did an exceptional job presenting your research and findings. I am so proud of you! Keep exploring! -Mrs. Nicolarsen

  2. Incredible work! I love that you used physics to uncover the wonder of everyday life.

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