Here are the 2025 EXPO activities:
Mario Kart Racer
Mario kart, everyone’s favorite beloved racing game. Build your own race car powered by a balloon and compete with others to see which kart will go the farthest. This is a great chance to explore how force affects the motion of an object and the effects of friction stopping the kart once the balloon is out of air.
Crazy Claws
Is the arcade claw machine always dropping your toy at the last second? Well, create a sturdier claw that will help you grab onto anything. Learn how elasticity can be used to stretch and return to its original position to create functioning devices. Try to see how many pom poms your claw can pick up in under a minute.
Leap Frog
Ribbit, Ribbit, Ribbit! Help your little origami frog jump over obstacles to get to the city on the other side. Another great way to explore how potential energy turns into kinetic to jump from one spot to another.
Custom Emotes
Get your groove on with your own dancing machine! Watch as your drawings turn into a dance as the pages rapidly flip into a single blur through utilizing the concept of apparent motion. This is your chance to create new poses, emotes, and moves in any way you want to design it.
Egg Drop
Mission of the day: safely land your astronaut on Mars! Put your engineering skills to use by designing a landing device that will keep your ‘astronaut’ in the device while it lands. Get creative and problem solve your device so that your spacecraft makes the landing and your ping pong ball doesn’t fall out.
Catapults
The classic Catapult. They’ve been around for ages and today you can design and fire a mini one on your own! This is an opportunity to learn about how potential energy is converted into kinetic energy to shoot a projectile. Keep designing and redesigning to get the best catapult you can so it will hit its target every time.
Wigglebots
Come create your own little wiggle bot! Experience an introduction to robotics and learn how to use batteries and vibration motors to create your own vibrating robot. Decorate and build it however you want and watch it wiggle and move around.
Rubber Band Helicopter
Ever wondered how a helicopter can fly using propellers? When propellers spin, the helicopter body utilizes Newton’s Third Law of Motion to spin in the opposite direction and stay in the air. Explore the concept of torque and engineer your own helicopter.
If you have any comments or suggestions, feel free to email us at competitions@engineeringexpo.wisc.edu.
