HYBRID CAR
Our assignment was to create a ecologically safe car that doesn't run on fossil fuels or a battery. My group consisted of Sarah Teel, Shannon Nguyon, and Patrick Heslip. Our car was made by a wooden frame, wheels made of CDs, and a string with a rubber band attached to the axle. We had about three weeks to work on the project, and presented on the final day.
We started with the car being powered by balloons. Then, as we worked on the car, we realized that the balloons wouldn't push the car enough to make the car go for 5 meters. The new car that we came up with was powered by a rubber band. The car works because string is taped to the axle. When the rubber band is released, the string unravels, pulling the wheels forward. The wheels use the friction on the ground to move the car.
Concepts:
Energy- W=PE=KE capacity for doing work
Gravitational potential energy- PE=mgh energy due to gravity being at a height. This helped our car move because the back of the car was heavier so gravity pulled it down with more force.
Kinetic Energy- KE=1/2mv^2 energy due to movement
Spring constant- F=kx and Mg=kx a measure of the elasticity of spring. We used this to measure how much energy the rubber band had.
Spring potential energy- PE=1/2kx^2 energy due to compression or expansion of elastic PE
Friction- force that affects motion. This helped our car move because the wheels grip the ground better.
Pressure- P=force/area the amount of force on a certain area
Entropy- disorder, heat is lost to environment and can't be used, randomness
Power- P=w/t rate of doing work
The things that went very well in my project was teamwork. We worked remarkably well together and talked honestly about each other's ideas. I believe that we were such a strong team because we respect and like each other. It worked well and we mostly succeeded because of our teamwork to all work together to accomplish something bigger. We communicated so well together because we respected each others opinions. If one of us asked another to do something, we would do it without question. It was a super good group.
Another thing I think we were good at was time management. We were done with the car by the second or third day, and could perfect it for the next week. We made sure we had enough time for everything while other groups were scrambling at lunch times to finish the car.
Two things that I think we could have worked on is always being focused and to always be open minded. We sometimes strayed off of the topic we were discussing. This probably wasted some time we could've used to perfect our presentation. We were also not totally open minded to new car ideas. We started with a balloon powered car that didn't work, but we didn't want to make a different car so we kept using that idea. If we had been more flexible we might've been able to make the car curve less.
Do It Better Project:
We started with the car being powered by balloons. Then, as we worked on the car, we realized that the balloons wouldn't push the car enough to make the car go for 5 meters. The new car that we came up with was powered by a rubber band. The car works because string is taped to the axle. When the rubber band is released, the string unravels, pulling the wheels forward. The wheels use the friction on the ground to move the car.
Concepts:
Energy- W=PE=KE capacity for doing work
Gravitational potential energy- PE=mgh energy due to gravity being at a height. This helped our car move because the back of the car was heavier so gravity pulled it down with more force.
Kinetic Energy- KE=1/2mv^2 energy due to movement
Spring constant- F=kx and Mg=kx a measure of the elasticity of spring. We used this to measure how much energy the rubber band had.
Spring potential energy- PE=1/2kx^2 energy due to compression or expansion of elastic PE
Friction- force that affects motion. This helped our car move because the wheels grip the ground better.
Pressure- P=force/area the amount of force on a certain area
Entropy- disorder, heat is lost to environment and can't be used, randomness
Power- P=w/t rate of doing work
The things that went very well in my project was teamwork. We worked remarkably well together and talked honestly about each other's ideas. I believe that we were such a strong team because we respect and like each other. It worked well and we mostly succeeded because of our teamwork to all work together to accomplish something bigger. We communicated so well together because we respected each others opinions. If one of us asked another to do something, we would do it without question. It was a super good group.
Another thing I think we were good at was time management. We were done with the car by the second or third day, and could perfect it for the next week. We made sure we had enough time for everything while other groups were scrambling at lunch times to finish the car.
Two things that I think we could have worked on is always being focused and to always be open minded. We sometimes strayed off of the topic we were discussing. This probably wasted some time we could've used to perfect our presentation. We were also not totally open minded to new car ideas. We started with a balloon powered car that didn't work, but we didn't want to make a different car so we kept using that idea. If we had been more flexible we might've been able to make the car curve less.
Do It Better Project:
Do it Better
For our last project, we had to choose new groups and redesign a previous project. My group that I chose was Sarah Teel, Grace Olson, and Shannon Nguyon. We decided to put the two ideas together to make it work even better. Grace's project was powered by a mouse trap, and ours (as seen above) was powered by a rubber band. We started by making a strong base of a car, with straight wheels. Last project our car had wobbly wheels, and was not very sturdy. We tried to make sure this project was a screwed together well, without using hot glue. We first tried to power the car with a mouse trap, so it had the same amount of power every time. When that broke the mouse trap, we added a piece to the front of our car, so we could use rubber band power.
The rubber band power worked. It was not as consistent as a mouse trap could have been, but we did not have access to another mouse trap. We ended up string multiple rubber bands together so it had as much power as possible. The car took a lot of changing to get it right. There were many problems, with splitting wood, broken wheels, and curved driving. This is a video of the car finally going five meters.
Reflection
This project did not go as well as I had hoped. Two things that I think my group did well were communicating and work ethic. We all talked to each other honestly about what we thought was working, and what we thought was not working. Talking to your group is a key piece that with some of my projects, I feel as though we did not do well. Also, we were very good with work ethic. Together, we worked the whole time. It was easy to keep working because we had not been building with tools in multiple weeks, and it was a good break. We never took large rest times, and that made our project work more smoothly.
Two things that my group did not do well were deciding on one idea and following through our project quickly. We all had ideas, and we shared them, but we had a hard time compromising them into one idea. That consumed time, since this project was shorter. We also didn't complete our project quickly. Once we decided on an idea, finishing it was tough. We ran into many problems, from breaking our car to not having a material before the project had to be done 2 days later. This caused us to have to work over the weekend to complete the project in time. This was not a good experience overall because I did not remember what we wanted to do better from the last time we made our car, and the project overall did not improve much more than our original car.