Hybrid Car
Our assignment was to create a car...
Our assignment was to create a car that Hyundai could use. This car had to use an energy source other than fuel, chemicals, or nuclear power. We had about a week to build our car. My group and I decided on powering our car with a rat trap, which we deemed as “The Rat-Mobile”.
We came up with our design after brainstorming everything that we could do. We had initially planned on making a car that was fueled with a Potassium and Water reaction, but the rules state that you may not use chemicals.
We had about a week to build our car. We also went through about 3 different cars. The first car didn’t go far enough, as it was too heavy, the second car still didn’t go far enough because there wasn’t enough force, but the last car did reach it’s goal of 5 meters.
Physics:
Reflection:
Our project had it's ups and downs. There were many of each, but let's start with the negatives, then the positives.
One of the issues was having a team where someone wanted to do everything. This made everyone else seem lazy compared to the person that is very grabby. I could solve this by confronting someone that does that, and remind them that this is a classroom, where everyone has to learn, not where one person shows off their skill.
I'm not going to pretend that my group was the issue, My group was fantastic and I love all of them. This is a me problem, and that problem is being ambitious. It is good to be ambitious, but not overly so. An example is the explosion fueled car design. This was overy the top. I over thought a lot of things. I could solve this by remembering KISS. Keep It Simple Stupid.
There were some positives though. I learned how to be a better company to people. My group mates believed that I was a fun person to work with, which I wasn’t expecting. I never received feedback that said I was fun to work with, not because of my contribution, but because of my presence, which is amazing.
I also learned how to make graphs and make data presentable. I was proud of the graphs I made, along with the data tables. Another amazing part was that most of my calculations were right and actually made sense. It's amazing how well our numbers fit together and how easy it was to solve our problems.
This was an amazing project and I hope I do more like this in the future.
Our assignment was to create a car that Hyundai could use. This car had to use an energy source other than fuel, chemicals, or nuclear power. We had about a week to build our car. My group and I decided on powering our car with a rat trap, which we deemed as “The Rat-Mobile”.
We came up with our design after brainstorming everything that we could do. We had initially planned on making a car that was fueled with a Potassium and Water reaction, but the rules state that you may not use chemicals.
We had about a week to build our car. We also went through about 3 different cars. The first car didn’t go far enough, as it was too heavy, the second car still didn’t go far enough because there wasn’t enough force, but the last car did reach it’s goal of 5 meters.
Physics:
- Velocity: Velocity is the speed of an object in a given direction. This is measured in meters/second. The formula is distance/time. We measured the velocity of our car at every meter. We noticed that our velocity increased very fast, but then made a sharp decline at the 3 second mark. This is because, after 3 seconds, the whole car’s spring was used and the car is just coasting.
- Spring Potential Energy: PE(spring) is how much energy is stored in a spring. The unit is in Joules, as is all energy. The formula is PE(spring)=½kx^2. K is the spring constant, or how difficult it is to compress/expand the spring. The X is how far the spring is being compressed/expanded. Our potential energy steadily decreased, which means that the energy is being converted.
- Kinetic Energy: KE is energy due to motion, and is measured in Joules. The formula that we used was KE=1/2Mv^2, or ½ * mass * velocity^2. We tracked the kinetic energy at every meter and noticed that the kinetic energy would rise constantly, but would drop after about 3 seconds. This is due to the spring extending all it’s energy, and after 3 seconds the car will coast.
- Thermal Energy: We found the thermal energy by subtracting the PE from the Total energy, then subtracting that by the KE. The difference would be our thermal energy, or friction. This is measured in Joules, and we noticed that the thermal energy would keep increasing no matter what, this is because you can’t just lose energy, it has to be converted.
Reflection:
Our project had it's ups and downs. There were many of each, but let's start with the negatives, then the positives.
One of the issues was having a team where someone wanted to do everything. This made everyone else seem lazy compared to the person that is very grabby. I could solve this by confronting someone that does that, and remind them that this is a classroom, where everyone has to learn, not where one person shows off their skill.
I'm not going to pretend that my group was the issue, My group was fantastic and I love all of them. This is a me problem, and that problem is being ambitious. It is good to be ambitious, but not overly so. An example is the explosion fueled car design. This was overy the top. I over thought a lot of things. I could solve this by remembering KISS. Keep It Simple Stupid.
There were some positives though. I learned how to be a better company to people. My group mates believed that I was a fun person to work with, which I wasn’t expecting. I never received feedback that said I was fun to work with, not because of my contribution, but because of my presence, which is amazing.
I also learned how to make graphs and make data presentable. I was proud of the graphs I made, along with the data tables. Another amazing part was that most of my calculations were right and actually made sense. It's amazing how well our numbers fit together and how easy it was to solve our problems.
This was an amazing project and I hope I do more like this in the future.