Hand-Eye Coordination Science Fair Projects
Using Remote Control Cars

Fun Science Fair Projects

Making your science fair project is important. When your project is fun it will make the amount of work that you have to invest in your project seem like child's play. It will also make it easier to recruit test subjects and to keep the science fair judges' attentions.

PURPOSE

The purpose of this experiment was to compare the hand-eye coordination of third graders with seventh graders.

I became interested in this idea when I was driving my radio control car and I started wondering why I was worse at driving it than my older brother was.

The information gained from this experiment can be used by coaches and insurance companies. Coaches can choose better players and the insurance companies can charge younger drivers more for insurance if it is proven that they are less coordinated.

Photon Solar Racer	Radio Controlled Car
Ages 9 and up	Ages 10 and up

HYPOTHESIS

My first hypothesis was that the seventh graders would make fewer mistakes on average than the third graders when driving through the course.

I based my first hypothesis on the information gained from speaking to Debbie Sheppard, the Registered Occupational Therapist at my school. She said, “As you grow, your hand-eye coordination usually gets better because you usually play more sports.”

My second hypothesis was that the seventh graders would drive the car through the course at a faster speed on average than the third graders.

I based my second hypothesis on several observations. Many seventh graders spend several hours a year playing video games that are car races or chases. I think they have practiced turning accurately and driving quickly so much more than third graders that this training will improve their scores.

EXPERIMENT DESIGN

The constants in this study were:
* The testing environment
* The course the car was run on
* The radio controller used for the experiment
* The radio control car for the experiment
* The battery condition of the car
* The battery condition of the controller
* The amount of time given to each subject to practice
* The experimenter’s script read to each subject as directions
* Number of trials for each subject

The manipulated variable was the average age of the subjects.

The responding variables were the amount of mistakes made by each subject and the time taken to navigate the course.

To measure the responding variables I tallied the mistakes and I measured the time taken to navigate the course with a digital stopwatch.

MATERIALS

Hand-eye coordination science fair projects for kids continues here at RC car science fair projects for kids.