How to Make a Planet Merry Go Round

Scriorks

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posted on 5 years ago — updated on 1 second ago

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You might not notice it, but the Earth never sits still. It’s always traveling around the sun in a circle, along with the other planets in our solar system, like a giant merry go round in space! You can make your own planet merry go round with a paper plate, some drinking straws, and a set of planet stickers. Once your merry go round is built, use it to explore how objects rotate around a fixed point, like the planets moving around the sun.

Steps

Building the Base and Center Pole

Poke the pointy end of the bamboo stick into the plate. Set your plate down on a table and carefully poke a hole right in the middle of it with the sharp end of the bamboo stick. Leave the bamboo stick standing straight up from the middle of the plate. Be very careful not to poke yourself with the pointy end of the stick! If you’re having trouble getting it to go into the plate, ask a grownup for help.Tip: If the stick won’t stay up, ask a grownup to help you. They might be able to make it stand up with some tape or a bit of glue.

Slide the boba straw down over the stick. Take your big boba straw and put one of the open ends over the top of the stick. Let it slide down so it rests on the plate. Don’t try to glue or tape the boba straw down. It needs to be able to spin around the stick so your merry go round can turn.

Tape 6 drinking straws around the boba straw to make a wider pole. Next, get 6 of the smaller drinking straws. Use glue dots or tape to stick one of the straws to the side of the boba straw, so that both straws are sticking straight up from the plate. Then, do the same thing with the other 5 straws, so they go all around the boba straw. Now your merry go round will have a nice, big center pole. Try turning it to make sure it can spin!

Adding the Spokes and Seats

Cut up your other drinking straws to make 8 shorter pieces. Take 1 of the drinking straws you have left and use scissors cut it into 3 equal pieces. Then, cut up 2 more straws the same way. Take 8 of the short straw pieces to make your spokes. Each straw piece should be about 3 to 3.5 inches (7.6 to 8.9 cm) long. Ask a grownup to help you measure the pieces with a ruler. Always be careful and ask a grownup first before you use scissors.

Glue or tape the short straws around the middle of the center pole. Use tape or a glue dot to stick one of the short straws onto the center pole, about halfway down. Make it stick straight out from the middle of the pole instead of facing down. Then, glue or tape the rest of the short straws around the middle of the pole. Try to make all the short straws about the same distance apart. Now your merry go round has spokes, just like a wheel.

Put a planet sticker on the end of each short straw to make “seats”. Take each of your 8 planet stickers and put 1 over the end of every short straw. These will be the seats for the imaginary riders on your merry go round. Put the stickers on in order, starting with the closest planet to the sun and ending with the farthest. The order of the planets, from near to far, is Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. If you’re not sure which planet is which, ask a grownup to help you figure it out.

Place the sun sticker on top of the center pole. Now you should have just 1 sticker left—the sun! Put it on top of the pole in the middle of your merry go round. Now your merry go round will look like the solar system, with all the planets going around the sun.Did you know? On your merry go round, all the planets are the same distance away from the sun. But in the real solar system, some planets are much farther away than others, and they don’t all travel at the same speed. The Earth goes around the sun in 365 days (1 year). Neptune is so slow and far away that it takes about 165 Earth years to go around the sun just once!

Decorate your merry go round with markers. Now that you’ve put it all together, have fun decorating your merry go round. You can color in the plate or decorate it with stars and asteroids, or write “Planet Merry Go Round” in fancy letters. If you want, you can also use your leftover straws to make safety handles or other decorations for the seats.

Testing Your Merry Go Round

Try different ways to make your merry go round spin. Now that you’ve created your merry go round, it’s time to make it move! You could try tapping it gently, blowing on it, or flicking it with your fingers. Try to think of other ways to get it going.Did you know? The force that makes a wheel or merry go round spin around is called “torque.” Torque can be a push or a pull, and it can have different strengths or come from different directions. When you push on your merry go round to make it spin, you’re using torque! What happens if you add torque from a different direction? Watch your merry go round while it’s moving. What shape do the planets make as they spin around the center pole? Think about how a real merry go round works. What makes it spin? Does it work the same way as your model merry go round?

Look for ways to make it go faster or slower. Once you get your merry go round spinning, try different things to change how it spins. Can you make it speed up or slow down? What about if you want to stop it? Try giving it a gentle tap and then a harder tap. Which tap makes it go faster? Can you make your merry go round spin in a different direction?

See if your merry go round keeps going or if it stops. Make your merry go round spin again, but this time watch it for a while without touching it. Do you think it will keep going forever, or will it stop on its own after a while? Why? Try experimenting with other things that can spin, twirl, or roll. For example, you could spin a top, roll a pencil, or make a coin spin on its edge. Do they keep going, or do they stop after a while? If they stop, what do you think causes this to happen?