Summary
The Fixies — tiny helpers who live inside our machines — reveal what horsepower means and how we measure how much work an engine can do. A quick full episode (about 6 minutes) from the how-things-work cartoon, easy to drop into a science or STEM warm-up.
Viewer safety
All ages
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Teaching resources
Discussion questions
Discussion
This episode shows what horsepower means and how we measure how much work an engine can do.
- What does horsepower have to do with real horses?
- Why do bigger machines need more power?
- What is the most powerful machine you can think of?
Quick work-a-long
Vocabulary: horsepower, power, engine, work, energy.
Try it: Rank three machines (a toy car, a real car, a rocket) from least to most powerful and explain why.