Before
What is STEM and what does it stand for?
Where does STEM come into this task?

Language used & concepts discussed
Gravity
Force
Speed
Strength
Height
Ramps
Cylinders
Tunnels

After
Why did the successful models work?

Students came up with the points that it worked well when the marble had a distance to travel to gain some speed. Thick card or folded paper was better than copy paper. ‘Ramp’ walls were much more efficient when they were deeper in case the marble got too much speed.

Using SLO-MO
Originally this was done as fun to show the students. While we were watching it we noticed some points where the marble was nearly falling off of their structure created. We watched this a few times and the students were able to pinpoint their errors and then go back and fix them for an improved version. SLO-MO enabled the students to pinpoint their errors instead of getting an approximation as they would at normal speed with their eyes.

A very cool trick! I had to share 🙂