CYPRESS : A Project Geared for Science Class

It was the sort of lesson most fourth-graders would hardly consider work: build a wooden car and race it.

But the car races Friday at Vessels Elementary School had an educational point: The 59 fourth-graders have spent the week leading up to the big day learning how machines work.

“It’s a hands-on project,” teacher William Carson said, pushing off a car from a sloped ramp he made for the experiment. “More kids learn with their hands and they’re getting a lot of learning done.”

Children cheered as they watched their creations slide down a ramp, hollering for the miniature automobiles to travel farther.

The results: “Cobra” came in at 59 feet, winning the competition as “Blazing Pink” and “Cool Riding” received second- and third-place honors with distances of 52.7 feet and 51.1 feet, respectively.

The students had made the eight-ounce cars out of blocks of wood provided by Carson.

Daniel Cardoza, who owns “Cobra,” said his father helped him make his car. “We put graphite on the axles, we made the wheels thin and we put a weight in the middle so it would go faster and farther,” the 9-year-old said. “I couldn’t have done it myself.”

Classmate Greg Groggin, also 9, said he had the help of his mother and her engineer friends from his neighborhood.

Although his car, “Blue Thunder,” didn’t place, he said he learned a valuable lesson.

“It’s hard to overcome friction,” he said. “But it was fun trying.”

Nine-year-old Ray Moore’s mother, Darlene Harrison, cheered as her son’s car, “Speed Racer,” rolled by. “This is fantastic,” she said. “It’s very unusual to see parents helping their kids on schoolwork and this (experiment) gets the whole family involved.”

The assignment, her son said, taught him “a lot about aerodynamics.”

It also served as a family activity, Carson said. “I wanted to get the parents involved in the education of their children,” said Carson, who conducts several family experiments during the school year to teach science, social studies and art classes.

“We get a lot of fun homework like this,” said Rebecca Vinson, 9, spinning the wheels on her car, “Thunderbird.” “It’s better than just learning about stuff by just reading the books in the classroom.”