Students at Russellville Junior High School recently completed their annual Model Car project. Each year, students in Ms. Hutchinson’s, Mr. Sichmeller’s, and Ms. Haley’s class work on a model car project that involves the students measuring a car in the RJHS parking lot and shrinking it down to a scale factor of 10.5.
“We have done this project for the last 5 years and the students really get into it,” says RJHS math teacher Summer Hutchinson. “They enjoy creating new things and understanding what the process is to scale up or down different items. We discussed in class how blue prints to a building start out small but with scale factor and math skills, which they are utilizing on this project, buildings are created.”
Students draw the front and side views of their model car and make modifications to it that show their personality, including paint, rims, tint on windows, decals, etc. They then write a paper to explain their changes and present it to their class. The goal of the project is for students to be creative while learning how to scale an object down.
Eighth grader Brooke Bevis enjoyed the final project this year. “The car project is very fun because it is an enjoyable way to interact with each other and show our abilities to draw. It is nice to be able to let loose and just design our own car.”