TryEngineering
Try Engineering: Tinkering With Tops
Lesson explores the history, design, and motion of spinning tops. Student teams design and build their own tops that can spin for at least 10 seconds within a circle 30 centimeters in diameter.
Science and Mathematics Initiative for Learning Enhancement (SMILE)
Smile: Lab Activity: Tops
The Illinois Institute of Technology provides a lab activity on precession and spinning tops. Designed for primary grades, but easily adapted for any level. Includes directions and assessment ideas.
Science Museum of Minnesota
Science Museum of Minnesota: Tops
In this lesson make a spinning top to explore the concepts of shape, color, spinning, and optical illusions.
Other
Spinning the Web: The Story of the Cotton Industry
A complete look at the history of the cotton industry in England. Navigate the site by clicking on topics at the top of the page. You can also find a list of museums on the left side of the page. Clicking on the museum will take you to...
Children's Discovery Museum
Children's Discovery Museum of San Jose: Color Blending Top
Put a new spin on blending colors by creating your own spinning top. Mix colors through motion and make this optical illusion spring to life.
TryEngineering
Try Engineering: Tinkering With Tops
Students learn about the engineering design process as they design, build, and test spinning tops using everyday materials. The objective of the design is to have the top spin at least 10 seconds within a thirty centimeter diameter.
Center of Science and Industry
Cosi Columbus: Bottle "Tops"
Learn about rotation and balance in this hands-on science experiment. Includes full list of materials, procedures, and scientific explanation of how wobbling affects the "spin time" of an object due to it being unbalanced.
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: Investigating Movement of Tops
Students will raise questions about the way tops move by observing, through exploration/inquiry time, what they are made of, how the shape of each top affects its movement and what surface is best for a top to spin longest. As they...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Mechanics Mania
Through ten lessons and numerous activities, students explore the natural universal rules engineers and physicists use to understand how things move and stay still. Together, these rules are called "mechanics." The study of mechanics is...
Other
Glenn Turner: Gyroscope Math Page
The mathematics associated with gyroscopes can be investigated through this interactive page. Users enter critical parameters about gyroscopes and rotational motion descriptors are given.
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: Lab: Horizontally Launched Projectiles (With Uncertainty Analysis)
This lab takes a "time- tested" lab and puts a new spin on it by using the uncertainty of all measurements and uncertainty of their prediction. Students will use this measurement technique while using the kinematics equation to predict...
Purdue University
Purdue University: Quantum Numbers & Electron Configurations
This site from the Purdue University provides quantum numbers explained in detail and shown how they specify the atomic orbital of each electron and their energy levels. Electronic configurations are explained. Learning exercises with...