TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Simple Machines
Through a five-lesson series with five hands-on activities, students are introduced to six simple machines - inclined plane, wedge, screw, lever, pulley, wheel-and-axle - as well as compound machines, which are combinations of two or...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Simple Machines From Pyramids to Skyscrapers
Simple machines are devices with few or no moving parts that make work easier, and which people have used to provide mechanical advantage for thousands of years. Students learn about the wedge, wheel and axle, lever, inclined plane,...
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Mit: Blossoms: Using Geometry to Design Simple Machines
An MIT engineering professor offers a fun presentation on simple machines, specifically the geometry involved in building them. Students will learn about kinematics ("geometry in motion") and build their own simple machines with a...
Technology Student
Technology Student: Mechanisms
This site describes mechanisms and simple machines, and the basic components used to build them.
Read Works
Read Works: Machines Can Move
[Free Registration/Login Required] An informational text about simple machines people use every day. A question sheet is available to help students build skills in reading comprehension.
Read Works
Read Works: Machines Can Move!
[Free Registration/Login Required] An informational text about simple machines used in daily life such as: a pulley, a screw, an inclined plane, a wheel and axle, a wedge, and a lever. A question sheet is available to help students build...
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: Calculating Kinetics of a Student Designed Machine
In this interactive building experience, students will design and construct a complex machine to do a fairly simple task. Students will calculate several kinetic quantities of different parts of their machine. Students will create an...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: The Power of Mechanical Advantage
Students learn about the mechanical advantage offered by pulleys in an interactive and game-like manner. By virtue of the activity's mechatronic presentation, they learn to study a mechanical system not as a static image, but rather as a...
Museum of Science
Museum of Science and Industry: Online Science: Build a Lever
Step-by-step illustrated instructions for an experiment investigating how a lever works. An explanation of the science involved is given at the end.
Other
Ontario Council for Technology Education: Designing and Testing a Crane [Pdf]
By the end of this project, students will be familiar with the 6 different simple machines and will be able to identify how these machines are used in products and tools they use on a daily basis. They will investigate how mechanical...
Other
How to smile.org: Building Pulleys
An activity where young scholars use pulley systems to pick up a paint can and move an eraser from the ground to the top of a desk. After completing this activity, students will understand how pulley systems can help us do work.
PBS
Pbs: Sesame Street: Science
A collection of interactives, videos, and documents on a variety science concepts.
TryEngineering
Try Engineering: Trebuchet Toss
A lesson plan through which students design and build a small trebuchet from everyday materials. After building and testing their models, students will compete to see whose prototype produces the farthest launch.
PBS
Pbs Teachers: Games Machines Play: Rube Goldberg Challenge
Explore the cartoons of Rube Goldberg and design a complex machine to perform a simple task. Use scientific design elements and information about energy transfer to build a model of the machine.
Maryland Science Center
Maryland Science Center: March Madness Finger Basketball [Pdf]
Build a miniature basketball court, and use a spoon lever to shoot balls into the basket. Experiment with different materials to see which one works the best.
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: The Physics and Engineering of a Trebuchet
In this simple machines lab learners investigate how the trebuchet works using their prior knowledge of simple machines. Students then build a trebuchet and analyze the physics and engineering that goes into building and launching it.
PBS
Pbs Teachers: Cantilever Model
Learn about cantilevers by building one with straws and masking tape.