This is the Newton Egg Cart portion of my STEM e-portfolio. This was a two team project and the goal was to save an egg from cracking. To do this good team communication skills needed to be used in order to complete the task. I worked with Preston S. and to save the time, yes we did succeed. A newton cart would have an egg attached to the top and be sent down an 8 foot ramp. The contraption had to travel at least 5 m/s in order for the trial to count. Then the cart would travel 2 feet and collide with the wall. This project allowed us STEM students to use our creative minds to think of an effective was to SAVE THE EGG!!!
While we were brainstorming ideas we made sure to sketch every idea that we thought of so we can easily communicate our ideas to each other. A good labeled sketch helps someone visualize what the final product will look like. Our idea was to create a crumple zone for the newton cart so it would absorb the impact of the collision. Then we decided to make a box for the egg to sit in so it wouldn't be launched out on impact. This box was connected to the cart by rubber bands which moved on collision helping reduce the overall force enacted on the egg. Another rule that we had to account for was that the egg had to be the last thing to go in so there was a seatbelt system we could easily slip the egg into.
Using the inventor computer application, we created a version of what our final product would look like. Here we learned how to recreate objects based off of their dimensions and place them into a 3D computerized model. The front is the triangle part which is the crumple zone. The yellow part of it is a sponge and the triangle is aluminum foil. The box on top is the overall case for the egg to sit in.
This is what our final product looked like and it worked on every trial. The crumple zone worked as intended. The egg was able to stay inside its seatbelt system and the overall holder stayed on the car. The crumple zone worked every time but was inefficient because we had to make multiple at a time in order to make sure that it was the same every trial.
This was our data chart with the speeds recorded and the results. The comments allowed us to easily look back and see what we would have to focus on to make sure our Newton Egg Cart was consistent with success. By analyzing the data taken it can be concluded that it WORKED!