For this project, we were supposed to make a car that was had an energy-stored mechanism that translates stored potential energy to forward kinetic motion. Anything was acceptable as long as it wasn't chemical or nuclear (gas, man-powered). The goal was for the car to go five meters and then stop. Also, we had to have 250 grams of weight on our car (the weight of 100 pennies). The people in my group were Kendall Scheiner, Caitlyn Dwyer, and Timmy Harris. Our original idea was to do a diet coke and mentos powered car. We spent all of our time in class doing this to have it not work. Below you will see a video of our failed car.
After this failed, we set upon building a rubber band car. We only had an hour left of class until our deadline, and we finished it within that time. We took the board of our first car and used it and we added another pair of wheels instead of the water wheel. Then, we added a screw on one wheel and a screw on the bottom of the car for our rubber band to attach to and wind up around the wheel.Then, we tried it out and it only got to one meter out of our goal of five. Then, with advice from Mr. Williams, we added a stick on the front for one side of the rubber band to be hooked on so that the rubber band can stretch longer allowing the car more power. After this, we tried out our car and the wheel turned but it didn't go anywhere. There wasn't enough friction between the wheels and the ground, causing the wheels to slip and not allow the car to move. We were about to try to find a way to put more friction on our wheels, when we decided that we should try it with the weights on. It worked perfectly. The first time we tried it with the weights on it went almost exactly five meters.
CONCEPTS USED
- Velocity- velocity is the rate at which an object is moving in one direction. Velocity is calculated by the equation v= d/t. d is distance and t is time
- Thermal Energy- a measurement of how much energy goes to heat or friction. Thermal energy is used as a braking/stopping mechanism. To find the thermal energy, you do total energy - potential energy - kinetic energy.
- Kinetic energy- Kinetic energy represents how much forward motion energy the object currently has.
- Potential energy- how mch energy the thing could have. For ex: an object that is on top of a hill and is about to roll down has a high potential energy.
- Spring Energy constant- measure of how much a spring wants to pull back together, the rigidity of a spring. The equation is Force= k x d. K is represented by k = f/d.
- Spring Potential Energy- energy stored in a spring thing by pulling/ pushing it. This is represented by the equation PE= .5kv^2
Reflection
Overall, I think our group worked really well. Especially because of the hardships that we faced. We had some flaws obviously, such as not figuring out what we were going to do with the diet coke and mentos before we started working on it. Also, we shouldn't have tried out the diet coke and mentos to see if we could get enough power from it. But, after that was over and we ditched it, everything worked great. Almost immediately after it didn't work at all, we got set on building a rubber band car. We rushed too get it done and luckily it worked. We had only three problems with the rubber band car that we fixed using our problem solving skills. The first problem was that we couldn't get enough power because of the sharp angle from having one end of the rubber band on top of the car. The angle was created because the rubber band had to drop down to connect to our wheel. To fix this, we had to connect one end of the rubber band to the bottom of the car instead of the top. After this we got more energy from it, but still not enough. So, we added a long stick on the front which allowed the rubber band to stretch farther. This worked except that now we had too much energy. The wheels would slip on the ground because the wheels spun so fast. THE, we tried it with the wights on and it went exactly five meters.
My role in this project was as a builder for the coke and mentos car and then I was the leader for the rubber band car. For the diet coke and mentos, I helped make the wheels and the platform. Then, after the rubber band car was decided on, I became the leader for it. This is because I had built a rubber band car before and knew how to build it. I built the rubber band part of it and the spring stuff while the rest of my group put the new wheels on and painted the car. I group was efficient and worked hard.
Overall, I think our group worked really well. Especially because of the hardships that we faced. We had some flaws obviously, such as not figuring out what we were going to do with the diet coke and mentos before we started working on it. Also, we shouldn't have tried out the diet coke and mentos to see if we could get enough power from it. But, after that was over and we ditched it, everything worked great. Almost immediately after it didn't work at all, we got set on building a rubber band car. We rushed too get it done and luckily it worked. We had only three problems with the rubber band car that we fixed using our problem solving skills. The first problem was that we couldn't get enough power because of the sharp angle from having one end of the rubber band on top of the car. The angle was created because the rubber band had to drop down to connect to our wheel. To fix this, we had to connect one end of the rubber band to the bottom of the car instead of the top. After this we got more energy from it, but still not enough. So, we added a long stick on the front which allowed the rubber band to stretch farther. This worked except that now we had too much energy. The wheels would slip on the ground because the wheels spun so fast. THE, we tried it with the wights on and it went exactly five meters.
My role in this project was as a builder for the coke and mentos car and then I was the leader for the rubber band car. For the diet coke and mentos, I helped make the wheels and the platform. Then, after the rubber band car was decided on, I became the leader for it. This is because I had built a rubber band car before and knew how to build it. I built the rubber band part of it and the spring stuff while the rest of my group put the new wheels on and painted the car. I group was efficient and worked hard.