Tsongas Industrial History Center
Classroom Activities

Making a Water Wheel

Materials:

2 plastic plates

6 - 8-ounce plastic cups

2 - 3-ounce plastic cups

1 dowel (approx. 12 inches long)

string or ribbon masking tape

Materials for wheel base:

about 6 milk or juice cartons (1/2 gallon, rectangular, waxed kind)

 

Directions:

1) Punch holes in center of plates and center of bottom of 3-oz. cups.

2) Place plates bottom to bottom, attaching them with rolled-up masking tape and also taping them around the inside edge.

3) Space 8-oz. cups around edge of the plate. Tape so that all cups catch water in the same direction.

4) Put dowel through center of plates. Tape 3-oz. cups bottom to bottom. Put dowel through center of cups. The small cups act as a take-up reel. Tape a long piece of string or ribbon to the take-up reel.

small crude drawing of water wheel.

To use the wheel:

5) Make 2 stacks of 3 milk or juice cartons laid on their sides. (Use more or fewer cartons depending on the depth of your sink.) Tape cartons together, preferably with duct tape.

6) Punch a hole in top carton of each stack and insert dowel ends into stacks.

7) Place entire base/wheel set-up into sink and run water onto cups on wheel. As wheel turns, dowel and take-up reel should turn, too. (Tape plates or take-up cups to dowel if necessary.)

Very limited drawing of how the thing is supposed to look or work.

 

Tsongas Industrial History Center | Classroom Activities | Lowell National Historical Park