Make Your Own Top

Recommended for grades 2 - 7

Objectives:

Students will build tops and use various methods to make them spin.

Materials:
  (for each pair of experimenters)

• 1 stopwatch or other suitable timing device
• 1- 1/4 inch dowel, 10 inches long
• 4 10-inch Styrofoam or stiff paper plates
• 2 #8 single hole rubber stoppers
• 1 big nail to punch holes
• liquid soap (helps the dowel slide through the stoppers)
• Felt markers and other art supplies for decorating tops
• String launchers - each of these is made of a string about 30 inches long big wooden bead or spool
• Commercial tops and top-like items (rattlebacks, tippy tops, spinning platform and bicycle wheel, gyroscopes)

Most of these materials may be purchased at a hardware store. The #64 elastic bands can be purchased at a good office supply store such as Grand and Toy or Office Depot.

Rubber stoppers can be purchased from Northwest Labs in Victoria (1-800-663-5890).The catalogue number is 17-5371 and they cost $8.75 for 14 stoppers ('96 prices).

What to do:

1. Brainstorm - Solicit students' ideas about tops

Does anyone own one? What does it look like? Have you ever played with one? What can you tell me about the way they work and behave? Where can one find tops in our everyday world? Has anyone ever spun around or been a top? Has any one ever ridden a top? What was that like? Did you notice or do you remember anything special about tops?

Find the centre of your paper plate by balancing it on your finger. If the plate balances, your finger is at the centre of mass. Use the nail to poke a hole through the plate at that point.

Dip one end of a 10-inch long dowel in liquid soap to allow it to slide through the stoppers more easily.

Put one stopper on the dowel and slide it about a quarter of the length along.

Put the dowel through the hole in the plate, with the plate's top side facing the stopper.

Slide the other stopper on and push it tight up against the plate. There should be about one inch of dowel showing under the plate.

Be sure to tighten the rubber stoppers after each launch (they will work themselves loose).

Wrap the string around the stick of the top until there is about two inches left over.

Put the top on the ground. Put the very top of the stick inside the hole of the spool. This will give you a way to hold onto the top without stopping it from spinning.

Pull the string - slowly at first, then faster - while holding onto the spool. When the top is spinning, gently remove the spool.

Have the students share their successful launch methods with each other. Make sure they have lots of time to practice different launch methods before trying to modify their tops.

Depending on how much experience your group has had with tops and spinning toys, you may want to start with time for the students to play with a variety of commercial tops.

Tops spin well on uncarpeted floors. If you have carpet, try spinning the tops on lids from ice cream pails.

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