Reflection

On the day of testing, we saw many different designs. Some of them were vehicles we would never think of to build-- the Mousetrap was among the many. Their group used an actual mousetrap with a fishing fishing wire attachted to it. It was observed that the wires were winded around the back axels of the cars resulting in the total distanced traveled of 29 tiles. There were others with ideas that we had both considered using or had used; in the long run. we realized they wouldn't work or go as far as we were aiming for. Similar to us, many other people had balloon powered cars as well. Out of these, a few worked, but there were some that would not even move. A possible cause could have been that the balloon was facing in a way were its air flow was either being restricted or in the wrong direction.

Our car worked well at first, but kept turning around at around the fourth/fifth tile. If it had kept going straight, the vehicle would have definitely gone the distance of eight tiles, or so recorded from previous testing. If this project was done over again, something that would have been added is another set of small and light wheels in the front. Even though this would result in more mass and create more friction, the front wheels may have stopped it from turning. If we had kept the car with only two wheels, part of the draft that could have been changed would be the balloon. Instead of just letting go of the balloon, there could be, like another team had thought of,  two straws put into the hole of the balloon, limiting the air flow, yet making the wind stronger and more precise the whole time. This design was actually thought of and tested earlier, but we only used one straw and it didn't work, so we moved on to another idea without adding the number of straws. This project can help in further investigations about real cars or machines used for transportation in general. For example, when air comes out of the balloon, its backward force pushes the vehicle forward. This is the same type of way a rocket travels because the fuel of the rocket sends the airship flying as well..

Day 4: Final Draft's Concepts

Mini Lab Report 1:

If the vehicle is powered by a rubber band, it will travel farther than being powered by a balloon.

Previously, before the making of our final draft, many different possible vehicles were made. One being powered by a rubber band was among the many designs and creations. As mentioned in previous entries, the rubber band scooter had actually traveled a small distance of barely 3 centimeters. As a backup plan, the contruction of a balloon-powered car was taking place. Some of the parts from the rubber band car were being used-- recycling and reusing. The chopstick was the new idea as the base, so that the balloon would be able to fit between the wheels. Soon the vehicle was completed, and the balloon had deemed its power of force sufficient.

It was discovered that the hypothesis was wrong because using the rubber band as the source of power made the vehicle travel less distance than being powered by a balloon.
 

Mini Lab Report 2:

If there are two wheels on the vehicle, then it will have less mass, less friction, and will travel farther.

The idea of two wheels was chosen while brainstorming for a new scooter that would incorporate the power of force as the balloon; it was based off of a segway scooter. After getting a chopstick, two of the CD wheels from the old rubber band scooter were carefully taped to the stick(the chopstick was in between the two CDs). Then, a straw was cut through one of its sides and taped to the chopstick(which was a step that was ,soon discovered, supposed to be right before taping on the CDs). The plan was to attach the balloon to the scooter. The straw was there so that when the balloon is taped to the vehicle(the straw), it wouldn't spin with the taped chopstick and CDs. Although it still had some tweaks, the scooter had traveled much faster than the car powered by the rubberband with the four heavy CDs.

The hypothesis is proven to be true because with three to four wheels, they were always bound to the risk of not moving at all because it was heavy from producing too much friction.

Mini Lab Report 3:

If a soda top was used to hold the balloon in place, then the vehicle will move in a straight line.

One of the main tweaks(as mentioned above), was the scooter's inabiliy to travel in a straight line. To solve this, the layout of the draft had included a soda lid taped to the straw. The lid was aquired by going to McDonalds. Before taping it on, the place to usually insert the straw was cut off, in case the pointy plastic would stop air flow or pop the balloon. Out of all the 10+ tests, there were only a few that had the scooter traveling in a straight line-- though when it did, it was very successful.

The hypothesis and idea is unreliable and proved to sometimes be incorrect because even though the balloon was positioned in a way that would release a straight airflow, the end of the balloon let out an uneven stream of air, making the scooter swerve/turn midway.

Summary:

During the construction of the scooter vehicle, there were some changes to the drafts. At first, we were going to have the vehicle being composed of 4 wheels. It didn't work as well as we wanted to have, so we just took 2 of the CDs off. Ideas of trying to not use the soda lid were used as well. There was also thought and testing of a design where the balloon(s) would be in front of the scooter and attached by a string. This was a possibility of a draft because there was a risk of the balloon touching the wheels. causing the scooter to slow down and actually made the car go backwards.

 

Concepts Applied:

Newton's 2nd law of acceleration and mass is applied to this vehicle because since the mass of our scooter is small, the amount of net force needed to move the object a far distance is far as well. The law of action and reaction forces are used by the car, too. Because the balloon's air is pushing the vehicle(action force), the vehicle is basically pushing the air(reaction force) for an equilibrium.


The pair of us had previously built a car that was powered by winding back a rubber band around the wheel's axel. Although this design had failed miserably, along with our current vehicle, it still had the same concepts of kinetic and potential energy. When winded back, the car had much potential energy. There was kinetic energy in both scooters as well; the rubber band/blown up balloon allowed the vehicle to move, and kinetic energy has to do with moving objects.

Day 4:Victory!!

Our vehicle was able to produce a result that we were proud of,
 even if it was stopped by a shoe!(trial 5) We didn't know that it would travel that far, so perhaps that's why we didn't clean that much of the hallway.

Trial	Distance(cm)
1	157.5
2	175.5
3	290
4	145
5	392

The scooter had traveled in a very straight line. We don't know if the balloon and snooter will be able to produce this result again, but it is hopeful.

Day 4: Testing and Revision

Meeting up again, we finally got to test our --not so-- hopeful vehicle. The first few tests that weren't recorded didn't quite go in a straight line. The scooter kept on turning and, in the end, moved backwards. There were also problems with the balloon dragging on the ground, resulting the scooter to come to a stop. To fix these problems, some adjustments were made:

• sticking straw through the balloon(though that didn't work...).
• making the hole of the soda top smaller by adding on tape(though that only restricted more air from coming out of the balloon; the vehicle traveled even less).
• blowing up the balloon more, hoping that the air would release powerfully in a straight stream(but it wasn't much help either).
• lathering the bottom of the balloon with water (which didn't really work)
• Putting a paper (which we thought had less sliding friction) underneath the balloon (but there was even more friction from that, causing the scooter to travel less).

Final Design Draft

Final Draft

Day 3: Perseverance Paid Off... Kind of.

Good News: After seven hours of precious Saturday hours, we built a vehicle that could go more than a foot.

Bad News: We spent seven hours building a car that still does not meet the requirements. 

`.`

"This is pure despair"
               -Emily Kang

Day 3: Pencils? Toothpicks? Markers? WE DON'T KNOW!!!

We are going use toothpicks again. After starting to use markers, we realized they would be too massive to use... now we are using a combination  of markers and toothpicks.

Day 3: Maybe We Should Have Planned Better...

Since pencils have sides to them (they are not perfectly smooth), we are not going to use them any more. Instead, we decided to use markers, which are round. I knew from the beginning that the first drafts were not going to work perfectly or that the second drafts were not the best either. What I didn't know was that both drafts would end up being such a let-down. Both of us are going crazy trying to find a solution to our problem with the CDs. This may be the answer.... using markers.

Day 3: Disaster (Part 2)

Okay, this officially sucks.

Car 1 completely failed.
Guess what happened to Car 2? THE EXACT SAME THING! We are starting to realize that maybe CDs as wheels weren't the best idea... Even so, we are obviously not going to give up this easily. We stuck with using CDs and decided to stop using toothpicks for the structure of our car. Instead, Emily had the fabulous idea of using pencils- they are like huge toothpicks! Okay, so there's an up side and a down side to this. First of all, pencils are bigger and sturdier, so the hole of the CD would not be as big compared to the toothpicks. One thing that could hurt is the mass of the pencils, since they are a lot heavier.

Day 3: update

With little belief that we could actually make a car that wouldn't let us down for at least five seconds, we started building Emily's Second Draft Vehicle (referred to as Car #2). So far, Car #2 looks like it will work better than our first car did, but that could just be because we know nothing could be worse than our first vehicle... so, in a way, we could only get better.

Day 3: Disaster

We had such high hopes.. In this case, confidence didn't really come in handy...

As we were working on Shivani's Second Draft Vehicle, we faced one major problem. After finally getting the CD wheels in their rightful places, it got really hard to keep the car off the ground. The CDs kept slanting side to side and from their weight, the whole car would collapse one way or another- whichever way the CDs fell to. A whole lot of work went into taping on the balloon. Finally, with little hope left, we tested our car. It barely went two inches after the wheel at the head of the car slanted to one side, making the car fall to the ground. So much for that idea.

Bad News: Our first car was a total fail
Good News: We have a back-up plan (Emily's Second Draft Car!) that will...hopefully....work

Which One is Better?

Emily's Second Draft Vehicle         vs.          Shivani's Second Draft Vehicle


No point at the head of the car                           Point at the head of the car
(making a little more air resistance)                     (making a little less air resistance)

Very sturdy                                                        Not the best when it comes to strength... pretty weak

Weight more                                                      Weight less

Uses rubber bands for source of                         Uses balloon for source of force
 force (making it like a slingshot)                                                                          


Why this matters??? (Car 1 means Emily's Draft
 Vehicle and Car 2 means Shivani's Draft Vehicle)


Since Car 2's head is not flat, it will have less air resistance than Car 1.

Car 1 is no doubt sturdier than Car 2, but does it matter if we have a sturdy
 car or a vehicle just strong enough to hold a balloon?

Car 2 weighs less than Car 1 does, so Car 2 will experience less friction

Car 1 uses rubber bands while Car 2 uses a balloon as a source of power.
I am not sure if the balloon will make the car go in a straight or semi-straight
direction and I do not want to take a chance. For Car 1, Emily and I could
aim it so that when we let the rubber bands go, the car will move in a straight
line. Making the vehicle go in a straight-as-possible line is not only because
our requirements for this project is to keep the vehicle in a two tile width, but
because the shortest distance is a straight line. If our car goes in a curve, it will
lose the power from the rubber bands/balloon and may not end up to meet the
required distance.

Building

We started building our prototypes today. After realizing my first draft of our scooter would not work (since it would have no wheels, which would make to vehicle have A LOT of friction), we started building the car in draft #2. So far, it is really flimsy, but I am hoping that will not matter since it only needs to hold a balloon… hopefully the balloon doesn't blow all over the place and take the vehicle with it! Right now it’s too early to find out... this vehicle could either work fantastically or be an epic fail. 

Day 2: Starting the Construction

For the second meeting of our building project, Shivani and I asked beforehand to borrow a hotglue gun from Mr. Villavicencio's class earlier in the day; we've aquired a pink hotglue gun and two
rolls(?cylinders?) of solid glue. I've put them into my safekeeping until I went to Shivani's house. At her home, we got started on creating the mini prototypes and then to the actual vehicles.
Our choice of materials were toothpicks and using CDs as the wheels. There are some pros and cons to these items.

Pros:

• vehicle will be light and will have a very small intertia
• less resistance to movement/change
• can possibly travel far
• wheels will be sturdy
• won't break easily
• small air resistance

Cons:

• structure may be too light/weak
• could fall apart/break
• toothpicks don't have much mass
• small momentum=inability to travel far
• CDs can't travel
• not enough friction to even move across tiles

Some problems were occured during this meeting. One would have to be the glue that kept--accidentally-- burning us, causing our hand to shake, leading to the breakage of toothpicks. The dried glue strings were also a hassle, but were capable to being used as "ropes" to tie corners of toothpicks together. At this point, the thought of using pencils being the structure and axels of the vehicles was vaguely considered.

Shivani's Drafts

Shivani's 1st Draft



Shivani's 2nd Draft

Emily's Drafts (1st and 2nd)

Emily's 1st Draft



Emily's 2nd Draft

Day 1: Gathering Our Ideas

The two of us met up with each other to discuss and show off our ideas and drafts. There are requirements of 3 prototypes, so we spend the rest of the time creating new, updated drafts. Because none of us were able to finish all three, homework was to brainstorm until the next meeting of more prototypes. At that time, future ideas will be discussed and models/prototypes will be created; vehicles will hopefully be started on by then as well.

Discussed Ideas:

Types of Wheels:

• CDs
• Cup lids (the plastic lids of soda cups)
• Beads
• Crumpled paper
• Tape rolls
• Bottle caps
• Car wheels (legos) 

Made of?

• toothpicks
• paper
• wood
• legos
• straws
• containers
• glass.... ?

Number of Wheels?

• one
• two
• three
• four
• six
• eight

Source of Power?

• balloons
• springs
• rubber bands
• water bottles (pressure form air inside)
• air

Structures (By both)

Made of?

• toothpicks
• paper
• wood
• legos
• straws
• containers 
• glass.... ?

Number of Wheels?

• one
• two
• three
• four
• six
• eight

Source of Power?

• balloons
• springs
• rubber bands
• water bottles (pressure form air inside)
• air

The Big Question

The challenge is to use our knowledge of Newton's laws of motion, momentum, and energy to design and construct a vehicle that will go as far as possible using an unbalanced force to create motion.

Rules:

• Construct a vehicle that can travel at least 3 tiles. Vehicle must stay within a 2-tile wide path.
• No FORWARD force may be applied to the vehicle by the student.
• Vehicle must be made of recycled/reused products. No pre-made vehicle parts.
• Vehicle must travel using an unbalanced force to create motion.
• Students are not allowed to help vehicle along the path.
• Students may not use electricity/fuel cells or manufactured containers of pressurized gas(ie. CO2). This is a land vehicle. All vehicles start from level surface (no ramps or walls). All parts of vehicle must remain on vehicle, except fuel.