Hybrid Car Project
Hyundai is looking for the next great car and asked STEM Marin to help them create it! We were given the task of creating a car that had to go exactly 5 meters carrying at least 250 grams of weight and had to use an alternate engine (power source)- not fuel/gas. My group and I started coming up with ideas on how we were going to power our car. At first we were going to build a balloon powered car that blew air out of straws, but it only traveled about 1 meter with 3 balloons on it. After that idea failed, we started brainstorming more ideas and looking for other alternate power sources for our car. After a lot of thought and research, we decided to use a rat trap as the engine to power the car. We built the car out of multiple pieces of wood and put the rat trap in the middle. We first had small wheels on the sides, but then we figured out that they had too much friction on the ground so we changed them. Instead we put in CDs as wheels so they were thiner, larger, and rolled easier. We then had to figure out how we could get the rat trap to move the car 5m. We started by coming up with pencils to attach to the rat trap and have it unwind a string that would make the wheels roll, and the car move forward. We put the string on a tube between the wheels and then connected it to the pencils on the rat trap. When we set up the car and rolled the string back, it worked, but when we tried it for a second time, the pencils broke because they were not strong enough to hold the force that that rat trap exerted on them. We then came up with the idea to use small, skinny, but still sturdy pieces of wood in place of the fragile pencils. When we attached these wood pieces to the car where the pencils were, we tested it out and they moved the car forward without breaking. We tested it many times, over and over again till we were able to make the car go 5 meters. We tested the distances by putting a lot of different weight sizes on the car but found out it moved the best with 250-300g on it. When we presented our car we put 250g of weight on it and the car went about 5.1 meters, one of the closest cars to perfect! We made sure our car looked stylish by painting the wheels, body of the car, and putting a big red flame for speed on the front of the car. I am so happy with how our end product turned out and I think Hyundai will really love our car!
Reflections
During this hybrid car project, I think there were a lot of things my group did well and a lot of things we still could have done better. Two things I gained by doing this project was learning a lot more about cars, and having better time management. The peak of getting to work on a car model is that I got to find a lot out about cars that I didn't know. While researching ideas, I saw cool things about car engines and how they work. I also got to learn a lot about alternate engine sources that could help me in the future if I ever wanted to work with cars or electronics. Another peak we had in this project was some of our time management. After our balloon car idea it only took us 2 days to come up with our new rat trap car idea and start building it. We finished building the car within a few days and then were able to work on the presentation, design/looks of the car, and perfect it moving only 5 meters. I gained time management skills from this that can help me with most anything now, and later on in life. It could help me manage my time for big projects I have to or for homework I have every night. Along with all our peaks and great things about our project, there were also some pits. Some things me and my group could have worked on was sharing the parts equally. One of the people in our group mainly built the car because they knew what they were doing and another did the whole powerpoint presentation on their laptop. The other two people still contributed a lot to the end product and by giving ideas, but it would be nice to have a little bit more PHYSICAL work from them. Another pit my group and I had was talking during the presentation. Some of the slides that we read sounded to choppy and copied from the presentation. Some of us could have spoken more openly and freely so the presentation could have gone a little more smoother and captivate the audience better. Even though we had some pits in this project, we also had some very high peaks. I am very happy with how the end product of our car came out and I hope that it becomes the next big thing in the car industry that everyone is talking about. My group and I got along very well and I am happy with how we collaborated our ideas and came out with this amazing car we built on our own. Once again, I think this project was a success and can't wait to show the world our Rat Trap Powered Car!
Content
Hyundai is looking for the next great car and asked STEM Marin to help them create it! We were given the task of creating a car that had to go exactly 5 meters carrying at least 250 grams of weight and had to use an alternate engine (power source)- not fuel/gas. My group and I started coming up with ideas on how we were going to power our car. At first we were going to build a balloon powered car that blew air out of straws, but it only traveled about 1 meter with 3 balloons on it. After that idea failed, we started brainstorming more ideas and looking for other alternate power sources for our car. After a lot of thought and research, we decided to use a rat trap as the engine to power the car. We built the car out of multiple pieces of wood and put the rat trap in the middle. We first had small wheels on the sides, but then we figured out that they had too much friction on the ground so we changed them. Instead we put in CDs as wheels so they were thiner, larger, and rolled easier. We then had to figure out how we could get the rat trap to move the car 5m. We started by coming up with pencils to attach to the rat trap and have it unwind a string that would make the wheels roll, and the car move forward. We put the string on a tube between the wheels and then connected it to the pencils on the rat trap. When we set up the car and rolled the string back, it worked, but when we tried it for a second time, the pencils broke because they were not strong enough to hold the force that that rat trap exerted on them. We then came up with the idea to use small, skinny, but still sturdy pieces of wood in place of the fragile pencils. When we attached these wood pieces to the car where the pencils were, we tested it out and they moved the car forward without breaking. We tested it many times, over and over again till we were able to make the car go 5 meters. We tested the distances by putting a lot of different weight sizes on the car but found out it moved the best with 250-300g on it. When we presented our car we put 250g of weight on it and the car went about 5.1 meters, one of the closest cars to perfect! We made sure our car looked stylish by painting the wheels, body of the car, and putting a big red flame for speed on the front of the car. I am so happy with how our end product turned out and I think Hyundai will really love our car!
Reflections
During this hybrid car project, I think there were a lot of things my group did well and a lot of things we still could have done better. Two things I gained by doing this project was learning a lot more about cars, and having better time management. The peak of getting to work on a car model is that I got to find a lot out about cars that I didn't know. While researching ideas, I saw cool things about car engines and how they work. I also got to learn a lot about alternate engine sources that could help me in the future if I ever wanted to work with cars or electronics. Another peak we had in this project was some of our time management. After our balloon car idea it only took us 2 days to come up with our new rat trap car idea and start building it. We finished building the car within a few days and then were able to work on the presentation, design/looks of the car, and perfect it moving only 5 meters. I gained time management skills from this that can help me with most anything now, and later on in life. It could help me manage my time for big projects I have to or for homework I have every night. Along with all our peaks and great things about our project, there were also some pits. Some things me and my group could have worked on was sharing the parts equally. One of the people in our group mainly built the car because they knew what they were doing and another did the whole powerpoint presentation on their laptop. The other two people still contributed a lot to the end product and by giving ideas, but it would be nice to have a little bit more PHYSICAL work from them. Another pit my group and I had was talking during the presentation. Some of the slides that we read sounded to choppy and copied from the presentation. Some of us could have spoken more openly and freely so the presentation could have gone a little more smoother and captivate the audience better. Even though we had some pits in this project, we also had some very high peaks. I am very happy with how the end product of our car came out and I hope that it becomes the next big thing in the car industry that everyone is talking about. My group and I got along very well and I am happy with how we collaborated our ideas and came out with this amazing car we built on our own. Once again, I think this project was a success and can't wait to show the world our Rat Trap Powered Car!
Content
- Energy: capacity for doing work- many different forms W=Fd, W= total PE= total KE. measured in Joules (J). Our car had a total energy of 4.314 J
- Gravitational Potential Energy: energy due to gravity- PE= mgh. measured in Joules (J)
- Kinetic Energy: energy due to movement- KE= 1/2mv^2. measured in Joules (J). Our car had about0.0574 J at 1 meter.
- Spring Constant: measure of elasticity of a spring- F= kx, mg= kx. measured in Newtons/ meter (N/m). Our car had a spring constant of 10.42 N/m
- Spring Potential Energy: energy due to compression or expansion of an elastic material- PE= 1/2kx^2. measured in Joules (J)
- Friction: force that affects or resists motion- measured in Newtons. Our car had a lot of friction on the wheels so we changed the wheels to CDs, which were bigger and skinnier and reduced some of the friction.
- Pressure: amount of force on a certain area- P= Force/Area. measured in Newtons/meters^2 (pascal) and (psi=pounds/inches^2). The 250 grams of weight we put on the car put a certain amount of pressure wherever they were placed on our car.
- Entropy: disorder, heat is lost to environment and can't be used; randomness.
- Power: rate of doing work- P= weight/ time (P=w/t). measured in Watts (W). Our car had a certain amount of power when it travelled 5 meter.
- Velocity: rate of change of an object (speed)- V= distance/time (V=d/t). measured in meters/ second (m/s). Our car had a velocity of 0.827 m/s at 4 meters.