HYBRID CAR
What is Our Hybrid Car?
We were tasked with creating some kind of car like vehicle that would run on an alternative energy source (not gas, not electric, and no chemical reactions) and would travel as close to 5 meters as possible carrying a load of 100 pennies. That doesn't sound very difficult...well it is. For our car we first decided that we wanted the vehicle to be air powered and have helium filled balloons so that it would float. To actually make it move we would attach propellers and let it go. It would have slowly drifted down and crossed the 5 meter line. Easy! We quickly abandoned that idea for obvious reasons...After that we got to work. Our current car is a triangular piece of wood with two wheels. A small wheel in the front and a large one in the back. The back wheel was wider and made the car fairly stable. Getting it to move was much more difficult. We attached a rat trap to the top of the car, while that might look comical, the trap has a lot of force. From the rat trap, two poles were attached with strings on the neds. the other end of the strings were to be wound around the axle to that when released that rat trap would pull the strings. The strings would then pull on the axle and rotate the wheel, moving the car. This method was very successful, stopping at about 5 meters every time.
Down below is our presentation with all of our calculations.
Terms and Concepts
Potential Energy: the energy an object has due to its position at a height in a gravitational field. We used potential energy for when the entire car was all wound up and waiting to be released.
Spring Potential Energy: The energy stored in a spring when it is compressed or expanded. We used this for each time the car hit a meter in distance and the spring now was at a different height, having a different potential energy.
Spring Constant: The measure of how difficult it is to expand or compress the spring. The spring constant was measured before the car was released and it toldus how much force the spring had.
Kinetic Energy: The energy an object has due to motion. This was the measure of the car moving from meter to meter in real time.
Thermal Energy:The internal energy an object has due to the kinetic energy of its atoms and/or molecules.
Momentum: The tendency of objects to keep moving meaning, how hard it would be to stop. This was used to see how well the car would work in real life situations.
Impulse: How long and forcefully something is impacted or pushed. Impulse was how long the car continued to move after the final amount of spring potential energy was used up.
Velocity: The rate of covered distance in a direction. This was to see how far the car went over each meter and how it changed from meter to meter.
We were tasked with creating some kind of car like vehicle that would run on an alternative energy source (not gas, not electric, and no chemical reactions) and would travel as close to 5 meters as possible carrying a load of 100 pennies. That doesn't sound very difficult...well it is. For our car we first decided that we wanted the vehicle to be air powered and have helium filled balloons so that it would float. To actually make it move we would attach propellers and let it go. It would have slowly drifted down and crossed the 5 meter line. Easy! We quickly abandoned that idea for obvious reasons...After that we got to work. Our current car is a triangular piece of wood with two wheels. A small wheel in the front and a large one in the back. The back wheel was wider and made the car fairly stable. Getting it to move was much more difficult. We attached a rat trap to the top of the car, while that might look comical, the trap has a lot of force. From the rat trap, two poles were attached with strings on the neds. the other end of the strings were to be wound around the axle to that when released that rat trap would pull the strings. The strings would then pull on the axle and rotate the wheel, moving the car. This method was very successful, stopping at about 5 meters every time.
Down below is our presentation with all of our calculations.
Terms and Concepts
Potential Energy: the energy an object has due to its position at a height in a gravitational field. We used potential energy for when the entire car was all wound up and waiting to be released.
Spring Potential Energy: The energy stored in a spring when it is compressed or expanded. We used this for each time the car hit a meter in distance and the spring now was at a different height, having a different potential energy.
Spring Constant: The measure of how difficult it is to expand or compress the spring. The spring constant was measured before the car was released and it toldus how much force the spring had.
Kinetic Energy: The energy an object has due to motion. This was the measure of the car moving from meter to meter in real time.
Thermal Energy:The internal energy an object has due to the kinetic energy of its atoms and/or molecules.
Momentum: The tendency of objects to keep moving meaning, how hard it would be to stop. This was used to see how well the car would work in real life situations.
Impulse: How long and forcefully something is impacted or pushed. Impulse was how long the car continued to move after the final amount of spring potential energy was used up.
Velocity: The rate of covered distance in a direction. This was to see how far the car went over each meter and how it changed from meter to meter.
Hybrid Car Presentation |
What I Learned
One of the biggest things that I learned in this project is that what think is practical, is not. When it came to having the flying car we had everything planned out and then I had heard Mr. Williams talking to another group about air power and its impracticalities. It didn't take long after that to realize that helium and propellers were not something that would be successful in making our car move. I also learned that everything needs to be improved upon, When using materials, sometimes the first thing you grab isn't the best and could be replaced with something better. The last thing that I learned in this group is that the people who you work with really does affect the quality of your work. If you're with people that you enjoy to be around, things will go more smoothly and the work will be of a higher caliber.
One of the biggest things that I learned in this project is that what think is practical, is not. When it came to having the flying car we had everything planned out and then I had heard Mr. Williams talking to another group about air power and its impracticalities. It didn't take long after that to realize that helium and propellers were not something that would be successful in making our car move. I also learned that everything needs to be improved upon, When using materials, sometimes the first thing you grab isn't the best and could be replaced with something better. The last thing that I learned in this group is that the people who you work with really does affect the quality of your work. If you're with people that you enjoy to be around, things will go more smoothly and the work will be of a higher caliber.