The assignment was to build a prototype car that would travel 5 meters and stop by itself. Not only did it have to travel 5 meters, it also had to be carrying 250 mg. My group for this project was Madi Jones, Ciara Samuel, and Colin McCloskey. The whole situation was very difficult, but with teamwork and dedication from my group, we managed to complete the task.
In our project, our hybrid car was powered by a rubber band. We would wind up the rubber band as tight as it needed to be, and the wound up rubber band would be storing all of the car's potential energy. Once we let go of the car, it would start rolling for a certain length, depending on how much we wound the rubber band.
This project really focused on velocity, acceleration, time,, and both potential and kinetic energy. If you look at our Power Point presentation, you will see graphs showing the connections between all of the different elements with the car. Velocity: speed with a direction Acceleration: increase in speed Time: how long it takes the car to get from one place to another
Reflection
This was a very difficult project to build. Our first four or five car designs did not work at all. We couldn't even get them to move. Our original design was a piece of wood with 4 CD's attached as the wheels. On top of the wood was a balloon that we would blow up through a straw. The idea was to have the air from the balloon to release and propel the car forwards. Unfortunately, this did not work so we got some helpful advice and ideas from another group to come up with our cereal box car. Something I thought our group could have done better was paying more attention and giving more ideas instead of just waiting for one person to throw an idea out there. I, personally, need to be more hands-on and help out with the power tools. Over all, our team did a really good job getting the task done