In the Hyundai Motor company alternate energy vechical project my group and I had a goal to build a vehical that used an alternate energy source to power our vehical exactly five meters. Using energy sources that did not pollute the enviroment I had to build a car that could carry a mass of 100 grams and try to sell it to Hyundai making it both mass producable and visualy appealing to consumers. Our final product can be seen above traveling its maximum distance.
In this project my group and I decided to use spring energy in the form of rubber bands to propell our car forward. We used wood for our axels and body of the car because it was both durable and light weight. For our wheel's we used CD's rapped in rubber bands because they were light weight and the rubber bands added traction to the wheels so they would not waste some of the energy spinning in place trying to grip the ground. For a visual effect we added orange rims to the back wheels to make the car more stylish.
If you would like to read futher into my project below you will find more pictures of the car along with my explanation of the concepts of physics we used in this project. You will also be able to read my reflection to learn more about what I took away from this project.
In this project my group and I decided to use spring energy in the form of rubber bands to propell our car forward. We used wood for our axels and body of the car because it was both durable and light weight. For our wheel's we used CD's rapped in rubber bands because they were light weight and the rubber bands added traction to the wheels so they would not waste some of the energy spinning in place trying to grip the ground. For a visual effect we added orange rims to the back wheels to make the car more stylish.
If you would like to read futher into my project below you will find more pictures of the car along with my explanation of the concepts of physics we used in this project. You will also be able to read my reflection to learn more about what I took away from this project.
Physics Concepts: Our car used many different physics aspects to make it go. There were many different types of energys that were converted into each other as the car started to roll. These included potential energy, kinetic energy, thermal energy, and total energy. As the car sat still at the starting line with the rubber band wrapped around the back axle 9 times the car's potential energy and total energy were the same. As the car started to roll foreward the potential energy rapidly decreased, turning into kinetic energy which moved our car forward while some of the energy was converted into thermal energy showing that our car was not 100% efficent. At 3 seconds after the car was released from the starting line all the potential energy had been converted into thermal energy. Thermal energy is energy in the form of heat usally caused by friction. With no stored energy left the car started to glide and lose speed eventually coming to a halt after 6 seconds. This can be seen in an energy over time graph on slide 11 of the slideshow below.
Acceleration and velocity were other key concepts that helped in better understanding and building this vehical. As the car accelerated in the first 1.2 seconds the velocity increased from 0 to 1.7 meters per second. After the first 1.2 seconds the acceleration started to decrease until 3 seconds, in that period of time the velocity went from 1.7 to .6 meters per second. After 3 seconds the car started to glide decreasing in both acceleration and velocity. One of the main challenges my group and I faced in this project was how to make the most out of the first acceleration boost. We knew that if we had more acceleration in the beginning then we would have more velocity in the end for the car to glide farther. Throughout the project we tried many different ways to try to find the most efficent way possible and eventually we found that if our weights were in the back of our car then it would press down on our back wheels giving them more traction to push the car forward. Below you can see our velocity vs. time graph on slide 10 of our slideshow.
In our slideshow below you can find our project description, the selling points of our car, the blueprints to our hybrid vehical, calculations, and graphs that hopefully help you better understand this project and our process in building our vehical.
Reflection:The Hybrid Car project has taught me lots of things and skills that I did not know before. A positive that I can take away from this project is that I have improved on my teamwork capabilitities. With more expierience in group activities I will be able to read a situation and know what I can do to help my team. Another positive thing is that I learned how to use a jigsaw. A jigsaw is very useful for cutting curves through thin pieces of plywood. I never imagined that I would learn how to use a power tool in a classroom setting but in STEM we get these types of opportunities that we can all benefit from.
Two negative points or learning points that I can take away from this project are to not waste time and to research ideas before putting them right into use. If my group and I did not waste time in the beginning and then also use the first prototype that came to our mind then maybe we would not have had to start over. If we had that extra time that was spent starting over we could have had more time to finess our car and make it go exactly 5 meters. These two things are points that I am still trying to improve upon and hopefully in the next project I will do better with them.