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High Speed Smash
Type: Activity
Learning Strategy: Interactive teaching
Topic: Forces
Richard Hammond was lucky to survive the 300 m.p.h. crash that nearly ended his career. He was testing a record-breaking dragster. At this high speed his safety helmet couldn't protect him. According to his doctors, the brain damage he suffered could take six months to heal. But what makes some cars reach such dangerous speeds. In this activity students consider balanced and unbalanced forces and their effect on the dragsters motion.
Published: 29th September 2006
Reviews & Comments: 10
Learning objectives
Students will describe how the relative sizes of drag and thrust affect motion.
Try the activity
- Activity sheet
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Curriculum link
7K Forces and their effectuse the concept of speed
relate forces acting to changes in motion
identify situations in which forces are balanced and unbalanced
9K Speeding up
Consider the relationship between forces (including balanced forces) on an object, and its movement.
Running the activity
Page 1 prompts students to discuss what makes some cars faster. Page 2 shows Hammond's dragster accelerating, covering half a mile at constant speed, and grinding to a halt after it swerved off the tarmac. Students arrange arrows to show the drag and thrust at each stage of the run. Then they use the sizes of the forces to explain the dragster's motion.
Background Notes
A dragster built by JCB broke its own diesel land speed record by reaching a speed of 350.092 m.p.h. (563.418km/h) during two runs on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, USA. Its predicted top speed is 370 m.p.h. (595 km/h). Presenter Richard Hammond was testing the car for TV's Top Gear – a program that has been criticised in the past for glorifying the pursuit of speed. He was euphoric after several successful high speed runs before the final one of the day ended so disastrously.
Web links
News links
- BBC
- The news story of Richard Hammond's tragic accident.
- University of Cambridge
- Flash animations to explain the effects of unbalanced forces.
Reviews & Comments
Write your online review to share your feedback and classroom tips with other teachers. How well does it work, how engaging is it, how did you use it, and how could it be improved?
forces
Jan 17th, 2010
this is a good website for me and its very useful. It gives me a lot of help in physics, biology and chemistry. I'm doing physics and chemistry and so I love physics. Thanks apd8
Reviewer: piranavan satheesh
forces
Aug 14th, 2009
The flash animation was good and the children enjoyed the topic as they knew the presenter. Afterwards we looked up the actual crash on youtube and that helped too.
Reviewer: heather Duerre
science
Feb 25th, 2009
worked really well with a year 7 class a good story behind the learning which enthused and excited the students.
thankyou
Reviewer: ibrar zaman
High Speed Smash
Jan 20th, 2009
Good for a number of topics.
Very good for P2 but also to extend very able students at KS3. If done as research project at KS3 studnets get quite enthused by this. Show You tube of accidnet.
Reviewer: James Mitchell
High Speed Smash review
Jan 19th, 2009
worked well to encourage independent working. Even worked as a starting topic with a L6 physics group
Reviewer: Catherine Aspinall
Year 8 forces
Sep 26th, 2008
I used this activity with top set year 8 and they loved it, The fact that it was based on a real event really appealed to them and they understood extactly what to do with the activity. This is probably a little simplistic for a top set group but can be easily extended by discussing streamlining and thrust. Will definately use this activity again.
Reviewer: Emma Whelan
High Speed Smash review
Nov 2nd, 2007
worked well with year 7 forces wenbt on to design their own dragsters
Reviewer: colin white
Thankyou
Apr 23rd, 2007
Used your 'Richard Hammond crash activity' for an interivew. The pupils loved it and the observers were incredibly impressed. Got the job too! Many thanks and keep up the great work!
Reviewer: Phil Day
High speed smash with year 9
Nov 12th, 2006
Ran this activity with my challenging year 9 group who are just coming to the end of the speeding up unit. Worked exceedingly well in stimulating them and reinforcing the idea of balanced / unbalance forces . The activity prompted some interesting discussion about cars being designed to go so fast when speed limits are what they are ! Excellent.
Reviewer: Pauline Elston
Misconceptions?
Oct 26th, 2006
Some basic physics about balanced forces covered well, but there are some misconceptions about the "streamlined" shape of a dragster. A dragster has a high drag coefficient; necessary to keep it on the ground and generate enough friction at the huge back wheels, not as described on the worksheet.
Reviewer: Ben Ryder
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