5 Fun Activities To Earn the Daisy Model Car Challenge Badge

Have your girls ever been interested in building a model car? If your looking for ideas to learn how to design and build your very own model car use some of these activities below to get you started!

We partnered with CodeSpeak Labs, which specializes in computer science education for kids, to bring you these resources.

Before jumping into some ideas, do you want to skip all the planning? If so, use the Model Car Design Activity Booklet with thought-provoking exercises that teach girls how to design a self-driving car. These activities include learning how autonomous vehicles work and designing their own car. With step-by-step activities, you can’t ask for an easier way to run your meeting. Learn more about this activity booklet and get yours today!

Be sure to also checkout these other STEM programs for your girls:

• Making Robot Move Activities
• Life Of A Robot Activities
• Board Game Activities

This 3 min video explains how self-driving cars work. The automotive industry is rapidly changing and the world that kids are growing up in will have more and more self-driving cars. This video raises some of the issues that will come up. After watching, discuss:

• What are the benefits of self-driving cars?
• What are the risks of self-driving cars?
• Would you be willing to ride in a self-driving car?

The girls at some point have probably built a car out of LEGOS. Have each girl build a car, and expand the learning by having the focus of the race be not on which car wins but rather which surface wins! You can explain the basics of friction and then test the cars ability to travel on different surfaces like:

• Wood
• Sandpaper
• Concrete floor
• Concrete floor with dirt
• Tiles
• Wet tiles

Start off by reading the girls the delightfully illustrated book If I Built a Car where the young protagonist describes a car out of his imagination complete with a snack bar and multi-terrain capabilities.

With this inspiration, give the girls art supplies and give them time to design the car of their dreams. No limitations of reality are necessary! When they’re done, they can pitch their cars to each other. Bonus points for girls who include rhymes, just like the book.

littleBits sets are great for this age, and this Space Rover kit works well for the Model Car badge. The kit includes electronic “bits” along with cardboard cut-outs that fit together to create a programmable vehicle. Your girls will experience how the motor, axle, wheels, servo, and battery work together to make the car go. Follow along with the free app to build variations on the rover and to program it to accomplish missions.

In our Model Car Design Activity Booklet, we include step-by-step instructions on how to build a model car using any internet-connected browser on a computer.