Fire Away! / Alternative Energy Vehicle
Evidence of Work
This time around, our assignment was to create a vehicle that could move a dollar's worth of pennies exactly 5 meters using a cost effective alternative energy source. We began by brainstorming energy sources as a class, and different methods of using rubber bands came up multiple times.
Initially, I wanted to create a wheel with a circumference of exactly 5 meters with the ability to only complete one full rotation. Shortly, that idea became very apparently unfeasible. We decided to figure out how much tension to put on a rubber band to move a small car. The wheels were using couldn't get enough grip and didn't go anywhere. When I was gone for two days, my group converted the hardware I already built into a setup involve a sled-like vehicle and a sort of slingshot, which had surprising accuracy, as well as impressive speed and capacity for the simplicity. It has 150g worth of weights on it, as well as an extra 50 pennies for the right amount of inertia and friction.
Content
Spring Potential Energy
Potential energy stored in tension
PEspring=0.5kx2
Gravitational Potential Energy
Potential energy as a result of height
PEg=mgh
Kinetic Energy
Energy in motion
KE=0.5mv2
Total Energy
The sum of all energy
Etotal=PE+KE+TE
Thermal Energy
Energy in the form of heat
TE=Etotal-(PE+KE)
Reflection
For the first time this year, the need for me to take lead arose. It happened rather naturally, when I immediately started spewing out ideas that could've worked, but of course it was something rather new. Even though there were times when I had to work well with my on deciding what to do and which design to adopt, the majority of the time (not to brag, of course) I was backbone of the team.
However, I am only human, and I do have pitfalls. For example, the position of leadership was more stressful, since most building, as well as all calculation, on top of micromanaging the other tasks, all fell to me. Also, I would like to work on my time management. A good example would be that at the time of this writing, I am only about halfway done with calculations, and the project is due in four days.