Our key question was not so much a question, but an objective. We had to create a car that was self-propelled and that could run over another oncoming car. This objective gave us many questions such as how weight, material, length, etc... might effect how the car performed.
Investigation:
We searched on the internet and decided it would be best if we create a rat trap car. It seemed like simplest and effective route to go and it worked out well. We used the rat trap as our base for the car and hot glued everything else around it. We glued zip ties to the bottom of our rat trap to hold the axels, which were straws. We also used CDs as our wheels and put rubber bands to give them more friction to go faster. We also used a metal string that we attached to our rear wheel, which would be the self-propelling aspect of the vehicle.
Materials List:
Rat trap- 2.50
CDs- 1.00
Rubber bands- 2.00
Straws- 2.00
Hot glue- 4.00
Metal string- 3.00
nice pics!
Analysis:
In the first round we got a bye because our car was so exceptional.
In the second round our opponent had taken someone else's car and therefore he was disqualified well that was lucky!
In the third round, we faced a very worthy opponent. His car was very well constructed and was a top contender. When we let our cars loose, my opponents car won and my car was forced to retire. Our car was on the lighter side and its overall speed was on the slower side. For these reasons the other car trampled my car.
I believe our car was a success and it is amazing that we even made it to the third round. I am just happy that we created a car that made it up the hill and that we made an original car.
If i were to create another car like this in the future, i would definitely try to build a heavier car. This one was much too light for the competition and a heavy car would have a lot of success because it could trample other cars.
Developing a Model:
When we planned this, we were just aiming to make a car that could go up the hill and survive the initial test, and in that we succeeded. We used a rat trap because the force of the rat trap would be a good source for a self-propelling car. We super glued the zip ties and left them a little loose so the straw axels could spin. good idea We also used rubber bands on our wheels because when we used just CDs the wheels would just spin because they had no friction, but when we added the rubber bands, it traveled a fair distance. Our Metal wire also was a big part of our car as well. The metal string was strong and never came undone.
Evidence:
I believe our car was an overall success. We got it to go up the hill and we even made it to the third round. I was really happy when the car first began to move and go up the hill. I believe we had a lot of success because the rat trap car was the simplest, yet effective. Most cars at the competition were rat trap cars and they were all pretty solid. Ours didn't look the strongest or fastest but at least it worked and it made it farther tan a lot of other cars did in the competition. I believe we had a lot of success because of our zip tie method. we used zip ties to hold the axels and it proved to be a good strategy. we left the zip ties a little loose so the axels would have less friction so they could spin faster. this method worked very well and we were the only group to actually do that.
If i were to do this lab again i would create a heavy car that would trample other cars and make a better base to the vehicle, because mass is very important in this self-propelling car lab.
