Project Description
In this project, my group and I designed and created a car to show the Hyundai Car Company to pitch as a potential candidate. We were allowed to use any type of energy except nuclear and chemical. Their challenge is to create a car that can carry 250g exactly five meters, we need a 3-5 minute presentation with performance graphs, and how cost efficient is our prototype. Down below you can see our proposal we showed to Hyundai.
Original Design
Our original design was completely different then our new design. For starters we used a bottle instead of wood and we tried to use a rubber band to propel a fan. It turns out that it was a lot harder to accomplish then we thought. Mr. Williams then taught us something key to our project, K.I.S.S. which stood for keep it simple stupid. We then changed our model design to look a little something like this.
As you can see, in our final car design we used various different things. We used wood as our base and had an axle underneath the wood. We used CD's as our wheels and used a rubber band as our transfer of energy.
Concepts
- Potential Energy (spring): How much energy a spring, or rubber band, is storing. Measures in Joules (J). We used this to calculate how much energy the rubber band car had before we released.
- Kinetic Energy: Energy due to motion. Measured in Joules (J). We used this to see how much of our potential energy was converted to movement force.
- Thermal Energy: The energy not converted to kinetic, and instead converted to things like sound and friction. Measured in Joules (J). We used this to see how ineffective our cars could be.
- Spring Constant: How difficult it is to move a spring. the higher the spring constant, the harder it is to move. We used this to help us find out how difficult, or easy, it was to stretch our rubber band We used equations such as V=d/t, PEgrav=mgh, and KE=1/2mv^2
- Velocity: Our times came out as: 0.59 seconds, 0.62 seconds, and 0.68 seconds. We were then able to find the velocitys for each, using the equation V=d/t. These came out as: meter 1: 1,69 meters per second, meter 2: 1.61 meters per second, and meter 3: 1.47 meters per second.
Our Car in Action!
Reflection
This project was frustrating and fun at the same time. It took a lot more effort and time than my group and I thought it would take. Something that went well was that my group and I were all on the same page and contributed ideas. What went poorly was that we had to restart because our original design had a couple flaws. I learned that it is important to be patient and not to rush too quickly into things, or you will dig a hole you can't climb out of. I also learned to listen to other peoples' thoughts and ideas instead of doing whats best. I think I could have improved my work ethic on this project because sometimes I would be off task and not focus on the task at hand. A couple of our peaks was when we figured out the trick to what we should hold our axle in; a marker holder. Another peak was when we got our car to go exactly 5 meters. A couple of our pits was when we had to restart because our original car had some design flaws. An additional pit was when our group member was absent. One of the biggest pits we had was when we couldn't decide how we should divide up the work and we ended up losing a lot of valuable time. The three of us had to manage our time and evenly divide up the work to do. Overall this project was a success and certainly a fun one.