Fast Car Forces

Our Project

This object of this assignment was to create a car in the maker space, and to measure the different forces that act on it. We added force to make it accelerate, and drew free body and motion diagrams. We then calculated the forces we needed to determine the net force. We added weight to our car, and proved Newton's Second Law with measurements using an accelerometer app. We found the coefficient of friction by applying force to our car with a spring scale to create a constant velocity while carefully watching the newtons. We used the normal force to then calculate the force of friction on our car. We then tested for all the forces again, but with the car on an incline. Finally, we did our best to speed our car up. We put it on a steeper incline, added more weight, and even attached it to a pulley with a heavy weight to add a tension aspect at an angle, which would pull it down the ramp faster.

Reflection

I feel like this project was a success. I loved working with my friends, and learning to use forces in real circumstances. he circuit boards on our board game. I was in charge of the circuit boards for my team, and I feel that I was successful. Another positive factor we had when creating our board game was being able to use our class time effectively. We used every minute of being in class because we had limited time.

One thing we could have done better was communicate. We had a couple instances, where we thought that another teammate was handling a job, when in reality, no one was responsible for it. We blamed each other for not telling each other what to do, but it was really everyone's fault. We could have been more productive outside of class at times. Sometimes, when one teammate didn't have any responsibilities for a day, they would distract other team mates. Next time, we will improve on productivity, and communication.