Alternative Energy Vehicle

For this project our group was tasked with creating a vehicle with an alternative energy source. Our group decided on wind power for our vehicle. We then combined ideas and thought of making a wind powered gondola instead of a wind powered car. Our first week of the project was brainstorming. After that it was time to build. This was my prototype that I made.

I made modifications over time but the vehicle stayed the same. I changed the zipline portion to a metal wire that can hold 10 pounds. I made a stronger base for the zipline to attach to as well. This allowed for a very strong wire that wouldn't sag when you put a large amount of weight on. My "wind" wasn't working so I made this contraption. It is a fan powered by a solar powered battery all on a skateboard.

Once the vehicle was done, each of our group members got a video of our vehicle working and we decided on who's worked best. Mine wasn't all that efficient since there was a large area of wind and a lot of wind didn't hit the sail part of the vehicle. Here is a video of my vehicle working.

After we looked at our group members' videos we decided that we would use Megan's design since it is super fast and very low friction. Our next step was to analyze the video of Megan's vehicle and put the data into this spreadsheet.

Our final step was to create a presentation combining all the data and images we have collected. I have included the presentation below.

Key Terms

• Spring Potential Energy: The energy stored in an object due to expansion or compression. We used this in our fire away project to learn how much PE our catapult had.

• Gravitational Potential Energy: The energy stored in an object due to its height or position vertically. We didn't use this in our vehicle since the vehicle stayed at a level height the whole time.

• Kinetic Energy: energy due to motion. We found both the KE of the wind coming out of the fan and the KE of the car. KE of the wind in our data was equal to the total energy of the vehicle since the wind was the only force moving it.

• Total Energy: Total energy is how much energy is in a system. To find total energy you add PE, KE, and TE to get total energy.

• Thermal Energy: Energy transferred to heat. In our vehicle, some energy was lost to heat when the hook rubbed against the rope/zipline. You can find it if you have to total energy, PE, and KE. Thermal energy is all the energy that wasn't converted into PE or KE.

• Distance vs. Time: When graphing distance vs. time it shows how far something is at what time, we used this in our data analysis google sheets. I included the table below.

• Velocity vs. Time: When you compare velocity vs. time you can see when an object speeds up, slows down and stops and at what time. In our google sheets we used our video to show the velocity vs. time of our vehicle. It speeds up at the start and then gets slower in the middle until it finishes.

Reflection

I think this project went really well. Our group wanted to stand out from the rest by doing something wind powered. We felt like everyone was going to do rubber band cars so we took 2 good ideas and combined them. It went really well in my opinion. We got all three of our vehicles working in different ways. Megan used wheels and a hairdryer. Logan used a leaf blower, and I used a metal wire. Each of us had a similar idea, we just modified it in different ways to see which would work best. I think that I could have improved on doing more for the group. At times I felt like I didn't do enough or that I did what I was supposed to but I did it wrong. In the future I could try and ask what I can do to help. I think overall this project went really well and was a good end to my first semester of high school.