Alternative Energy Vehicle

Evidence of Work

We started building our first car on Thursday, November 29. Our first idea was to build a wind-powered car, that would spin a fan made out of a bottle cap. When the fan spun around that would cause the wheels to turn, which would move the car and the pennies five meters. We created our blueprint (shown at right) and built the base for the car that day. The next day we were almost finished building the car when we figured out this car is not strong enough to push two pennies, so we started over.

This new car would be a mousetrap car. On Tuesday, December 3, we started building this car. We had to work quickly because we had already lost two build days. We built the base and created the wheels (made out of CDs). Everything was working and we tested it out. Though, the car would only go a couple of feet. The next day we continued to work on the car to try and make it go faster. We got the car to go 3.5 meters that day. The goal was 5 meters, so we kept on fixing the car. As we fixed the car to try and make it go farther, it ended up going a smaller distance. Since we no longer had time to fix our car, we left our car going a final distance of 2 meters.

Content:

Kinetic Energy (KE=½ mv^2)

½ meter: ½ (0.72kg) (0.51m/s^2)= 0.09J

1 meter: ½ (0.72kg) (0.56m/s^2)= 0.11J

1 ½ meters: ½ (0.72kg)(0.41m/s^2)= 0.06J

2 meters: ½ (0.72kg)(0.35m/s^2) = 0.04J


Spring Potential Energy (PE=½ kx^2)

Spring Potential Energy (PE=½ kx^2)

0 meters: ½ (74.7 N/m) (0.15m^2)= 0.84J

½ meters: ½ (74.7 N/m)(0.075m^2)= 0.21J

1 meter: ½ (74.7 N/m)(0.0375m^2)= 0.05J

1 ½ meters: ½ (74.7 N/m)(0.02m^2)=0.015J

2 meters: ½ (74.7 N/m)(0.009m^2)= ).003J


Gravitational Potential Energy (PEg=mgh)

Always 0 because we our vehicle always started on the ground (no height). PEg=0J


Total energy= 0.84J

½ (74.7 N/m) (0.15m^2)= 0.84J


Thermal Energy= TE=Etotal-PE-KE

TE=0.84J-0J-0.09J

TE=0.73J


Rotational Inertia= Rotational inertia is a property of any object which can be rotated. It tells us how difficult it is to change the rotational velocity of the object around a given rotational axis.


Alternative Energy Car

Here is our Alternative Energy Vehicle Presentation, that include the Distance vs. Time and Velocity vs. Time graphs.

Reflection:

Overall this project was the hardest out of all of them so far and tested my groups' patience. We had to change cars three times because our car did not work or broke down. Something I would improve on for next time, would be being more persistent. Having more confidence in our cars and not giving up so quickly. If our group stayed with one car the whole time we probably could have made it go farther and overall be better. Also, we would not have had to waste time working on other vehicles, and could have just spent the whole time working on one car.

Something I thought our team did well was staying positive. It got extremely annoying after the car kept failing time after time, but we always stayed positive. This was great because it made the experience more fun and allowed us to get work done. Staying positive helped our team keep on trying new ideas without stopping or getting frustrated with ourselves. Without being positive we probably would not have made the deadline and had a finished car.