Lucerne Valley students use CrunchLab Kits to create ‘Coin Spinners’

Lucerne Valley Virtual Academy elementary school students used engineer Mark Rober’s CrunchLabs kits to create machines that spin coins “faster than any human.”

The CrunchLab-based lesson was centered around the concept of a ratchet, a device consisting of a wheel with a set of angled teeth that move in one direction only, Lucerne Valley Unified School District officials stated.

While the average person can keep a coin spinning for only about six seconds, a student-assembled CrunchLabs kit can keep them spinning for an average of 14 seconds, according to Rober, who created CrunchLabs in 2022 to deliver monthly toys that teach kids engineering skills.

Rober was an engineer with NASA for nine years and spent seven years working on the Curiosity rover at Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He later worked at Apple Inc., according to his company.

The CrunchLab Kit

The CrunchLab project teaches a reality of physics that when a ring or sphere object — such as a coin — has more mass on its outside it has more energy to keep rotating, a lesson first taught to the Virtual Academy students in a previous CrunchLabs kit lesson.

Each of the Coin Spinner packages come with two kits so students can invite a friend or family member to join in the lesson.

During the recent in-class event in Lucerne Valley, students worked alongside others and some parents.

After the Virtual Academy students assembled their projects, they tested their coin spinners with various degrees of success. Coins were spinning on tables throughout the classroom with some students facing off against others to show their coin spinning prowess.

The Lucerne Valley Virtual Academy was started in 2020 to give families the opportunity to have their students participate in school remotely during the pandemic.

The K-12 program continues for those wanting to continue in the mostly remote learning format.

Daily Press reporter Rene Ray De La Cruz may be reached at RDeLaCruz@VVDailyPress.com. Follow him on X @DP_ReneDeLaCruz

This article originally appeared on Victorville Daily Press: Lucerne Valley students use CrunchLab Kits to create ‘Coin Spinners’