Hybrid Car
For this project we had to build a car that ran on an energy other than electric or motor energy. In the beginning it was very hard to find a way to make a car move without a motor. We had to make a car than we had to make it go, it had to travel exactly five meters and it has to stop at 5 meters. We searched for many ways to make our car go but it was hard to find the most exotic idea..
At first we wanted to make our car lemon-powered, but after realizing that we couldn't use fuel to power an engine and after watching some videos, we realized that was not going to work too. We then tried to use a rubber band type car which was a much better idea. We had many prototypes for it but we finally had an idea that we used a nail with a string. We had the 2012 model which used a spring, yet that didn't work. So we did a rubber band. Now why is it called the Rubby Band? Well one day Spencer had a tough time pronouncing words and he said "..hand me the rubby band." Then we called it that.
We had some ups and downs in our project. The one up that i think we had that mattered most was communication. We talked about everything we did except when i was drilling a hole and they changed their minds. Those were the funny parts of our project. The other big up we had was cooperation. After all we did, we had to redo our design. We all agreed on our next idea. That takes a great group, which we were. The largest hole we had was getting our car to actually work. We first thought friction was a huge factor, then we thought elasticity, then we figured out that traction was our big issue. At the get go it spun its wheel which unwound the rubber band. This was a problem till the idea of duct tape for traction. Our final product went about 2-3 meters but we had the video to show the farthest test we got.(youtube is acting up.. sorry i cant get in on here)
CONCEPTS:
Energy= capacity for doing work, equation= W=the change in PE=the change in KE,(J)
Gravitational Potential Energy= energy due to gravity/ being at a height. variable= PEg/Ug , equation= PE=MGH.
Kinetic Energy= energy due to movement, variable= KE, equation= KE=1/2mv^2. The kinetic energy in our our car was low and it slowly rose in the beginning; slowly rising and then falling again.
Spring Constant= a measure of the elasticity of the spring. This was very important because our car ran off of spring power. equation= F=KX and mg=KX
Spring potential energy= energy due to compression or expansion of elastic material. equation= PEs=1/2kx^2
Friction= force that affects motion.
Pressure= the amount of force on a certain area. equation= P=force/area
At first we wanted to make our car lemon-powered, but after realizing that we couldn't use fuel to power an engine and after watching some videos, we realized that was not going to work too. We then tried to use a rubber band type car which was a much better idea. We had many prototypes for it but we finally had an idea that we used a nail with a string. We had the 2012 model which used a spring, yet that didn't work. So we did a rubber band. Now why is it called the Rubby Band? Well one day Spencer had a tough time pronouncing words and he said "..hand me the rubby band." Then we called it that.
We had some ups and downs in our project. The one up that i think we had that mattered most was communication. We talked about everything we did except when i was drilling a hole and they changed their minds. Those were the funny parts of our project. The other big up we had was cooperation. After all we did, we had to redo our design. We all agreed on our next idea. That takes a great group, which we were. The largest hole we had was getting our car to actually work. We first thought friction was a huge factor, then we thought elasticity, then we figured out that traction was our big issue. At the get go it spun its wheel which unwound the rubber band. This was a problem till the idea of duct tape for traction. Our final product went about 2-3 meters but we had the video to show the farthest test we got.(youtube is acting up.. sorry i cant get in on here)
CONCEPTS:
Energy= capacity for doing work, equation= W=the change in PE=the change in KE,(J)
Gravitational Potential Energy= energy due to gravity/ being at a height. variable= PEg/Ug , equation= PE=MGH.
Kinetic Energy= energy due to movement, variable= KE, equation= KE=1/2mv^2. The kinetic energy in our our car was low and it slowly rose in the beginning; slowly rising and then falling again.
Spring Constant= a measure of the elasticity of the spring. This was very important because our car ran off of spring power. equation= F=KX and mg=KX
Spring potential energy= energy due to compression or expansion of elastic material. equation= PEs=1/2kx^2
Friction= force that affects motion.
Pressure= the amount of force on a certain area. equation= P=force/area