My school organises a competition for upper primary pupils in Singapore annually. Called the THINK Challenge, it gets participants to engage in problem-solving with a little help from the internet, team work and experimentation. “THINK” stands for the stages of the cycle of inquiry learning: Trigger, Harness, Investigate, Network and Know.
In this year’s Challenge, participants were tasked to construct a water wheel that is able to lift a 20g mass up a height of 30cm. This task is known as the “Trigger”. Participants were given 30 min on the internet to gather information while also “harnessing” their prior knowledge on energy conversions, frictional force, etc.
They were then given time during the “Investigate” phase to experiment and test out their prototypes. Our student facilitators then assisted to test the efficiency of their prototypes based on the amount of water used to lift the mass over the required distance.
In the “Network” phase, participants had to make a short presentation in front of a panel of judges, explaining the scientific principles involved, design considerations, limitations and suggestions for improvement.
Finally, the competition was wrapped up with a brief summary of the learning points in the “Know” stage just before handing out the prizes.
The winning teams this year were:
1st place: Maha Bodhi Primary School Team 1
2nd place: Bedok Green Primary School Team 1
3rd place: Haig Girls’ School Team 1
What Makes a Good Water Wheel?
Through this competition, we hoped that participants picked up new scientific knowledge through the inquiry-learning approach.
Some of the considerations needed when constructing and testing the water wheel include:
- Ways to reduce friction. Most participants realise early on that they need to allow the axle of the water wheel to turn with minimal friction. This means that they need to insert the chopstick given to them into a straw, and affix the water wheel to the straw while clamping the chopstick to a retort stand (a requirement for the competition). They also need to ensure that the string does not end up winding around the chopstick.
- Mass of water wheel. A heavy water wheel tends to be harder to turn due to a larger moment of inertia as well as greater friction at the axle.
- Finding an optimal height to pour the water from. They were given a bottle to pour out the water from and were allowed to pour the water from any height. While it makes sense to pour the water high above the wheel initially to achieve maximum gravitational potential energy, it was also resulting in inaccuracy and needless splashing of water.
- The type and arrangement of the water “buckets”. The buckets for carrying water in order to turn the wheel can be made of disposable cups or spoons, and should be arranged in regular intervals to ensure smooth rotation of the wheel. There has to be an optimal number of such buckets because if they are spaced too far apart, the lifted mass will turn the water wheel back in the opposite direction whenever the buckets are not doing work.
This water wheel from Haig Girls’ School used only 201 g of water - The position at which to tie the string to the weight. The mass to be lifted is attached to a string and this string has to be fixed to the turning wheel. If the string is tied too close to the circumference of the wheel, there may not be sufficient torque to lift the weight. If the string is too close to the axle, it will require more turns in order to lift the weight by the requisite height. The winning team managed to create an optimal distance between the string and the axle by using ice cream sticks.
