So far, I wanted to make some sort of contraption or toy that can allow younger kids to learn and understand energy transfer. I had difficulty coming up with some ideas, but here are some of them:
My first idea is basically a windmill that is spun by the cranking of a handle. Here is a diagram of something similar to my idea that I’ve found online:
Some pros of this design are that the design may not be as difficult but would require woodwork and that the design effectively shows the energy transfer from the cranking of the handle to wind energy from the movement of the rotors. A con of this idea is that this idea may be too simple and easy to make.
Another idea I have is somewhat the inverse of this idea, where via a source of wind energy, rotors on a windmill are spun and possibly some contraption that moves and as a result of the spinning of the handle links to the contraption, leading to the contraption making some movement as well.
Instead of having a person cranking the handle of this contraption I made in Grade 6, perhaps I could attach it to the handle portion of the windmill above and use wind power to move a similar contraption.
Some pros of this idea are that this is a variation upon the idea of the crank windmill and this makes it a bit more advanced than the previous idea, which may be beneficial and not as beneficial. This idea is also good to show how the energy transfers from wind energy to kinetic energy from the movement. Some cons of this idea are that this idea may take more time to build and that this idea may not be the most original.
Some other ideas I have that I have not explored as much is the option of making some sort of toy that relies on elastic energy that converts to create elastic energy, such as a toy car that will drive forwards after being pulled back.