Gear up for STEM: Inspiring the Next Generation of Innovators and Problem-Solvers

Build five fun gadgets and learn about gears and transmissions. Create a helicopter model with a rotor that spins using a rubber band-powered motor. Assemble a spinner toy that you wind up to launch a fast-spinning top. Make a centripetal force machine that flings its arms outward at high speeds. Build a hand-mixer that demonstrates a gear train. Construct a cool aircraft launcher that flings a model vehicle across the room on a zipline. A 24-page manual guides your model building and experiments with step-by-step illustrated instructions.

Did you know that gears are all around you? You can find them in wind-up toys, bicycles, carousels, cars and trucks, cranes, drills, wind turbines, analog watches, and so forth! If you've looked closely at a moving bicycle, you have seen gears at work. Are you curious about their purpose? In this activity you will use candy to make gears and explore why they are so versatile.

Gear up for STEM

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You probably noticed that the smaller a gear is, the faster it rotates. This happens because smaller gears have fewer teeth. Did you also notice that the direction of rotation is the reverse of the other gear when the gears mesh?

Smaller gears have fewer teeth and thus, compared with larger gears, they rotate through fewer teeth before finishing a full rotation. This allows them to turn faster. Take the example of a gear with twelve teeth interlocking with a gear with six teeth. The gear with twelve teeth turns half as fast because it has twice the number of teeth. The interlocking mechanism guarantees that the same number of teeth pass the point where they mesh. When one gear turns over six teeth the other will turn over six teeth as well. When the gear with six teeth makes a full turn the second gear only shifts over six of its twelve teeth. It only makes half a turn and so it rotates half as fast.

A gear is a special type of wheel. It is a disk that has teeth, called cogs, around its edge. Most of the time the teeth of two gears interlock, making the two wheels turn together. Sometimes the teeth mesh with a chain that connects the gears. You have probably seen this setup in bicycles.

Gears make tasks easier for humans and for motors. In many machines humans or motors make an axle (a rod that runs through a wheel or gear) turn, and the right gears can make the turning more efficient.

Our premier systemic mathematics program, TI MathForwardTM, addresses algebra readiness for students. This program is research-based, and incorporates our TI-NspireTM handheld and TI-NspireTM Navigator system. The MathForward program has produced significant gains in student achievement as outlined in the case studies we provide in the folder. 2ff7e9595c