INTRODUCTION The NHRA Motorsports Museum celebrates the American hot rod story. The museum’s collections follow hot rodding and racing in America from its earliest forms to the sophisticated machines of today. Long before Wally Parks, the founder of the National Hot Rod Association, first set foot in a hot rod, the history of automobile racing had been set into motion. Impressive feats of skill, daring, and technology have been performed throughout the history of automobile racing: early race cars required a driver and a mechanic on board and a race was often won by the automobile that simply finished the course; today, racing often involves teams of engineers, scientists, and experts in a variety of fields whose combined efforts result in highly advanced machines piloted by drivers who themselves are mentally and physically trained to be at the top of their game. A visit to the NHRA Motorsports Museum provides students with exciting examples of STEaM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics) principles. These are the signatures of the American hot rod story of innovation, invention, risk taking, design and artistic expression. Physics, Technology and Engineering in Automobile Racing Visit the NHRA Motorsports Museum, Hall of Champions for several activities that illustrate elements of Physics, Technology and Engineering in Motorsports. Use these activities to explore with your students the question, what concepts can be learned by analyzing motorsports? Automobile racing is a vivid and exciting means of introducing physics concepts, including Newton’s three laws of motion, forces in straight lines and circles, motion, distance, displacement, velocity, drag, acceleration and momentum. During your visit: Guide students through one or more of these activities in the Hall of Champions: What A Drag: Parachutes and Drag Racing Experience the principle of DRAG with these wearable parachutes. Our facilitators will provide you with two wearable parachutes for your students. Using the course adjacent to the museum building have students’ ‘race’ and deploy their parachutes at the marked positions on the course. Ask students to compare the effort needed to run without the parachute and with the parachute deployed. Compare their experience with the video in the Hall of Champions that shows dragsters deploying their parachute to assist in slowing down after a race. Discuss the principle of drag and how the parachute works to induce drag on an object in motion. Gravity Racers Assist students in this demonstration of Potential Energy and Kinetic Energy as well as principals of relative motion and momentum. Using the model of a dragstrip, students can ‘race’ model cars and use the results to discuss how changes in the vehicles might change their performance. Ask students to compare shape, weight, and other attributes of each car and reason how changes in these variables will impact the vehicles performance. Students can select different vehicles and attempt to predict their performance based on their attributes and what they experience with other vehicles on the course. Try an experiment by taping a coin to the roof of a gravity racer to increase its weight. See how this change alters the vehicle’s performance. Using materials provided have students try other modifications such as the addition of a wing or streamlining. Model T Fords Henry Ford’s Model T revolutionized the automobile industry. With more than 15 Million cars produced, the Model T became an inexpensive vehicle, form which hot rodders, racers, and customizers created many one-of-a-kind vehicles for a wide variety of purposes. The NHRA Motorsports Museum has selected several Model Ts from the collection so that you and your students may compare and contrast these modified vehicles. Viewing the group of Model T Fords, identify those modifications and attributes that contribute to their specialized use. Ask students why they think the Model T remains in use as the starting point for modified designs. What elements of each car help identify its specific use or the intent of its creator? This year, a visit to the NHRA Motorsports Museum is the perfect compliment to the Los Angeles County Fair’s theme of Route 66, the “Mother Road.” Route 66 is an icon of the car culture in California and the American hot rod story. Route 66 The history of motoring and hot rodding in the American West would not be complete without the history, culture, and geography of the Route 66. The NHRA Motorsports Museum collections and exhibits include direct references to Route 66, as well as many iconic automobiles that relate to the history and culture of the automobile in California and the RT66 experience. Exhibit: Working Wheels: The Vehicles of the Auto Club, 1909-1957 This special exhibition explores the many special vehicles the Auto Club has operated to serve unique purposes, including trucks used to install street signs, cars used to survey Southern California terrain for maps, and service trucks that provided roadside assistance to members in need. Several key elements of this exhibit relate to student’s exploration of Route 66: Prior to your visit: In addition to familiarizing students with RT66, introduce them to Henry Ford’s Model T. Between 1908 and 1927 over 15 million Model Ts were made. Now that’s mass production! The Henry Ford Museum and the History Channel have excellent resources available including video and classroom activities. During your visit: Guide students through the “Working Wheels” exhibit. Elements of the exhibit expand upon the RT66 story experienced at the LA County Fair: The Background Map Auto Club cartographers drew this map around 1914 as part of the efforts to create the National Old Trails Road, the first east-west transcontinental highway. The portions of the Old Trails Road depicted here travel through Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California and would become part of Route 66. Auto Club crews posted signs along the right-of-way to encourage local governments to upgrade the route. The original map is ink on coated linen and just under ten-feet long. Although the western half of the road was signed by the Automobile Club of Southern California in mid- 1914, the routing remained under much discussion until 1917. The western alignment was debated, with an early proposed routing going through Phoenix, Arizona, and San Diego, California, up to San Francisco, California. Eventually, however, the alignment as drawn here was agreed upon, which followed earlier Indian trails, preexisting railroad tracks and, in some cases, new construction. Throughout its life, the road was upgraded and realigned to improve the route. But, by 1926, significant portions in the west remained difficult to drive on, and much remained unpaved. Only 800 miles (1,300 km) were paved in 1927. Most of the road that traversed the California desert was widened and paved (or "oiled") by the late '20s, reportedly by a process pioneered by a local road superintendent, and some of this blacktop still can be found to this day. In 1926, the section west of Las Vegas, New Mexico, to Los Angeles, California, was certified as U.S. Highway 66, (now better known as Route 66) by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), as was a section in the St. Louis, Missouri area (Manchester Road). Activities: Have students identify the states and capitals where the iconic stops along Route 66 are located. Discuss how this early map that pre-dates RT66 is different from later maps of the “Mother Road”. Maps are the primary tools by which spatial relationships are visualized. Identify common features of most maps: o Legend - What is the information contained in the map). o Title - The title is important because it instantly gives the viewer a succinct description of the subject matter of the map. o North arrow - The purpose of the north arrow is for orientation. This allows the viewer to determine the direction of the map as it relates to due north. o Scale - The scale explains the relationship of the map to the real world. The description is a ratio. This can be shown either as a unit to unit or as one measurement to another measurement. Therefore, a scale showing a 1:10,000 scale means that every one paper map unit represents 10,000 real world units. For example, 1:10,000 in inches means that a measurement of one inch on the map equals 10,000 inches in real life. The second method of depicting scale is a comparison with different unit types. For example, 1″:100′ means that every inch measure on the paper map represents 100 feet in the real world. This ratio is the same as 1:1200 (1 foot = 12 inches). In addition to text representation as described above, the ratio can be shown graphically in the form of a scale bar. Maps that are not to scale tend have have a “N.T.S” notation which stands for “Not to scale.” o Citation - The citation tells the source and date of the data contained in the map. Citations help the viewer determine the use of the map for their own purposes as well as the currency and accuracy of the information contained within. Observe and discuss how maps change based on their use and common conventions. The map contains an inset that defies common convention by rotating the north arrow 90 degrees. Ask students if they can spot the inset, what makes it different, how it relates to the rest of the map, and why it is oriented this way. Vehicles in the Auto Club Exhibit 1926 Ford Model T “Broken Glass” Truck The glass used in early automobiles was easily broken by stones ‘kicked up’ from the roadway by other vehicles and even jarring from bumps and uneven road surfaces.