HYBRID CAR PROJECT
The goal of this project was to design and build a prototype of a car with an alternative power source to present to a panel Hyundai executives for a competition of sorts for the most cost efficient, time efficient and eco-friendly innovation. This car must travel a distance of 5 meters and not more, as quickly and accurately as possible as well as carry a 250g mass, or 100 pennies. We could not use gas, internal combustion, or nuclear power sources unfortunately, as well as having a remote control. And the final requirement for this project was to make a sales pitch for the car for Hyundai executives.
PROJECT HISTORY
We began by going over of main goal, which was to build an eco friendly, cost efficient "hybrid" prototype that could travel 5 meter and carry 100 pennies. Our first problem we faced was figuring out what we wanted to power our car with. We came with four ideas: battery (electricity), MineStorm LEGO™ set, a mouse trap, or nuclear power. Unfortunately the last option was king of illegal. We finally decided on an electric power source, since one of the member of our group specialized on electricity and concepts of that nature.
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After deciding on its power source we needed to figure out how we were going to stop the car, since we had not control of the car through a remote or program. We decided on a simple solution of tying a string to the axel that was a bit longer than five meters and tying to the opposite axil. We wound the string up in the direct we need the car to travel and let the car run. Crude but efficient.
We quickly began the building process which took place over a period of a week and a half. Poh constructed the internal electrical systems, I was supposed to build the body, which I failed at, (never carve with only one unsharpened chisel, it's not fun and takes way to long!) and also do the powerpoint, which I didn't completely fail at. Logan helped with the presentation, and really anything else we needed help with. The work was pretty evenly distributed.
We quickly began the building process which took place over a period of a week and a half. Poh constructed the internal electrical systems, I was supposed to build the body, which I failed at, (never carve with only one unsharpened chisel, it's not fun and takes way to long!) and also do the powerpoint, which I didn't completely fail at. Logan helped with the presentation, and really anything else we needed help with. The work was pretty evenly distributed.
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While we were building, we needed to figure out how we were going to carry all of the weight. Our car certainly had enough power to carry the 100 pennies, we just did not know exactly how we were going to attach the weights. Many groups just had weights somehow directly attached to the frame of the cars with tape or glue, while others had the pennies in a cup which they had glued or secured to the car, but since ours was a rather small frame, we didn't really have any room for the pennies. Our solution; a trailer of sorts. It made it more efficient to carry the pennies an external trailer. And to the best of our knowledge it did not appear to slow it down by a significant degree.
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After building the car, we needed to calculate speed, acceleration, mass, potential, kinetic and total energy, friction, as well as other measurements. Those calculation were most.y done at our houses. These calculations were then put into graph that were shown in our presentation.
We felt pretty good for most of the process until the very end when we began to realize that are car, really didn't work very consistently, it ran, but it didn't run exactly in a strait line.. This problem was really never fixed until the very end, where it worked in our final testing before the presentation, which then of course it broke again. But over all, it was a good experience.
We felt pretty good for most of the process until the very end when we began to realize that are car, really didn't work very consistently, it ran, but it didn't run exactly in a strait line.. This problem was really never fixed until the very end, where it worked in our final testing before the presentation, which then of course it broke again. But over all, it was a good experience.
CONCEPTS
KINETIC ENERGY - energy that a body possesses by virtue of being in motion. It transfers from potential energy. in a perfect world, all potential would be transfer to kinetic energy.
POTENTIAL ENERGY - the energy possessed by a body by virtue of its position relative to others, stresses within itself, electric charge, and other factors. |
if you are interested in seeing our power point, you may download it.
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VELOCITY - Velocity is the rate of change of the position of an object, equivalent to a specification of its speed and direction of motion.
FRICTION - the resistance that one surface or object encounters when moving over another.
ACCELERATION - the rate at which the velocity of a body changes with time.
THERMAL ENERGY - Thermal energy is the part of the total potential energy and kinetic energy of an object or sample of matter that results in the system temperature.
FRICTION - the resistance that one surface or object encounters when moving over another.
ACCELERATION - the rate at which the velocity of a body changes with time.
THERMAL ENERGY - Thermal energy is the part of the total potential energy and kinetic energy of an object or sample of matter that results in the system temperature.
REFLECTION
This entire project was really fun and I had a great group, so far this year however, this as been the difficult project that I think I have done. There was not actually alot of trial and error for us surprisingly, the only main problem we faced was the fact that the string kept getting caught on the wheels. Or so we thought. We were spending too much time on one problem and did not actually test the entire thing till the very end.
I don't feel that my group slacked off, or were off task. We were very focused and we worked on a schedule. However, although we were working, we were working on the wrong thing, I think. our priorities were not exactly straitened, and we did not identify our bottleneck.
I will take most of the blame for that due to the fact that a lot of our project was riding on the plans that I thought would work,. So I kind of lead us in the wrong direction perhaps. My other two team mates were hard working and I couldn't have asked for a better group to work with, just the model did not turn out as planned, which I suppose is life.
I would say for this project I was definatly more trusting in others to get work done. Not that I didn't trust my teammates in past projects, but in this project I wasn't having to do, or take part in every process, which I feel I do in most projects that I am in. So I feel I did better about not accidentlily taking over the project.
Not that this was something that was new to us, but we probably should have tested it a bit more. We knew that it ran, but we never actually saw it complete the required 5 meters. Another thing was that we should have looked into more options for the cars power source before we just leaped into building. We did not do alot of reasearch until we had began building the car.. I am not entirely sure if thats what we were supposed to do, but it would have been more benificial to reasearch the most efficient way to run a car, (ecofriendlyness, cost, and what not).
I quote myth busters "Failure is always an option". That does not mean you stop and give up at failure, it just means that it is one result that s destined to happen at points in engineering and science. In this case we did not have enough time to change our result
I don't feel that my group slacked off, or were off task. We were very focused and we worked on a schedule. However, although we were working, we were working on the wrong thing, I think. our priorities were not exactly straitened, and we did not identify our bottleneck.
I will take most of the blame for that due to the fact that a lot of our project was riding on the plans that I thought would work,. So I kind of lead us in the wrong direction perhaps. My other two team mates were hard working and I couldn't have asked for a better group to work with, just the model did not turn out as planned, which I suppose is life.
I would say for this project I was definatly more trusting in others to get work done. Not that I didn't trust my teammates in past projects, but in this project I wasn't having to do, or take part in every process, which I feel I do in most projects that I am in. So I feel I did better about not accidentlily taking over the project.
Not that this was something that was new to us, but we probably should have tested it a bit more. We knew that it ran, but we never actually saw it complete the required 5 meters. Another thing was that we should have looked into more options for the cars power source before we just leaped into building. We did not do alot of reasearch until we had began building the car.. I am not entirely sure if thats what we were supposed to do, but it would have been more benificial to reasearch the most efficient way to run a car, (ecofriendlyness, cost, and what not).
I quote myth busters "Failure is always an option". That does not mean you stop and give up at failure, it just means that it is one result that s destined to happen at points in engineering and science. In this case we did not have enough time to change our result