Tops

Round and round we go...

Building and perfecting their own spinning tops provides a great opportunity for children to develop the kinds of skills that are so important in engineering and science discovery—problem solving, estimating, observing and more. In addition, this activity offers kids a chance to learn more about variables—things you can change in a design or an experiment that will change the outcome of that experiment. For more on variables, see Suggestions.

Preparation

NOTE: It is VERY important that you use Chinet paper plates or an equivalent for this activity. Most other paper plates are too thin and will not make successful tops. Prefer plastic to paper? See Suggestions in the “Make it Better” step for how you might substitute plastic plates.

Sharpen the pencils and place all materials on a table at the front of the room. You can cover the tables that your students will be working on with chart paper, butcher paper or newspaper. Make sure to tape this paper down. If possible, collect tops of different shapes and sizes from toy stores, large retail stores, etc.

This activity is part of a series — after trying this one, check out all of the other Tops activities in this curriculum.

Resources

Figure 1

Suggested Materials

Small (6-8 inch) Chinet or other heavy duty paper plates (50)
Pencils (30)
Small binder clips (100)
Pencil sharpener
Stopwatches (10) or a clock with a second hand

Opening Discussion

Ask your students if any of them have played with tops before. What does a top look like? Have a volunteer draw a top on a piece of chart paper or a chalkboard. How do you play with tops?

If you have some “real” tops, gather your students together and show them these tops. Just looking at the tops, do they have any predictions as to which will spin the longest and which will spin the least amount of time? Why did they make the predictions they did? Spin the tops and compare, then present the challenge.

The Challenge

Using simple materials, can you build your own top that will spin for at least 5 seconds?

Doing the Activity

Divide your class into teams of 3 for this activity.
Have each team choose a materials manager—that student should come up to the materials table and gather 1 paper plate, 1 pencil, 1 stopwatch and up to 10 binder clips.
Tell teams that their challenge is to create a top that spins for at least 5 seconds. They may only use ONE plate per top, but they make as many tops as they would like in order to try different designs.
Build a top! If students try a design but wish to try another, they may build multiple tops, but teams should only use 1 plate for each top they build in this activity.

Let’s Talk About It

After 10–15 minutes, bring your students together away from the materials to talk about what they have discovered. Was it easy or hard to begin building their tops? Have a discussion about the parts of a top. Refer to the drawings made earlier and/or the “real” tops. Which part of the top is the pencil used for? What about the plate? Do the binder clips help? How? What was the first thing they had to figure out? Ask your students how they figured out where to poke the pencil through the plate. Some students may say “in the middle.” Is that important? How did they find the middle of the plate? See Suggestions (in the “Make it Better” step) for some ideas on how to find the center of a circle. Ask if any teams have a design that they can share with the group.

Build On What They Talked About

Have your students return to their construction. They may continue working with their original design, or start making a new top. As you move from team to team, talk to the students about the following:

Spin technique – It takes some practice to learn how to spin these tops! Smaller tops are usually spun with the fingers. That technique can work with these tops as well, but not nearly as effectively as using two hands. By placing your hands together flat with the pencil in between them, then moving them back and forth, you should see that the top spins back and forth too. If you move them back and forth, twisting the top, then let go in one smooth motion, you should give the top a lot more energy than you can just with your fingers. Practice this technique, and look for kids who have mastered it so they can share their expertise with their classmates. (See Figure 1 for an illustration).
Height of the plate on the pencil – One of the most important things for kids to figure out in this activity is what height the plate should be at on the pencil. In the drawings above, the plates are low on the pencil, closer to the table. What would happen if the plate were higher up, farther away from the table? If children are struggling with their tops, ask if they have experimented with the height of the plate. Do they think it will make a difference? Make sure you don’t TELL them where their plate should rest—let them discover it themselves!
Binder clips – As children experiment with their tops, the hole in the plate that their pencil passes through may get wider. The main use of the binder clips in this activity is to help keep the plate secure on the pencil. By placing a clip on the pencil just above the plate and another one on the pencil just below the plate, then sliding them as close together as possible, they will help to keep the plate in place. Let children discover this themselves. If you notice wobbly plates and no binder clips being used, ask students if they notice anything about the plate on their top. Does it move at all? Do they think this helps their top work better, work worse, or make no difference? Do they have any materials that might help keep the plate from wobbling? Children may discover other uses for the binder clips as well—let them explore these uses.

Now that they are pros, have kids try the next Tops activity, Tops – Big or Small?.

Suggestions

Variables – In this activity, variables are the things you can change about your top to make it act differently. The height of the plate on the pencil (lower works better); how close to the center of the plate the hole is (closest to the center works best); whether you use the binder clips to secure the plate; how you spin the top—these are all things that effect how the top spins. As you check in on each team and ask them about what they’ve tried, see if they are only changing one of these variables at a time. If, for example, they changed the plate height and the spin technique—how do they know which of those changes made their top act differently? By changing one thing at a time, they can learn about which changes result in the best top.
Finding the center of a circle – There are several methods for finding the center of the plates. In your first discussion, ask each team how they did it. They may have “eyeballed it” (just guessing where the center is); they may have measured for the center using a ruler; they may have seen a mark on the plate that looked like it might be the center, etc. Maybe they even folded one plate in half, turned it 90 degrees and folded it again. The easiest and most accurate way is to simply balance the plate on the tip of the pencil, then poke the pencil through at that point. If no teams discovered this method, show it to them during the discussion.
Now that your students have created some basic tops, try the next activity, Tops – Big or Small?.
If you would rather use plastic plates (the advantage being that you can reuse them), you may. There are a few disadvantages to plastic plates: kids can’t simply poke a hole in plastic plates…they will tear. So you will have to create the holes yourself, preferably with a soldering iron. Be careful not to make them too big, and be certain that they are EXACTLY centered so that kids don’t get stuck with off-center, wobbly plates. The other down side to using plastic is that kids miss out on the design challenge of finding the center of the plates.