Reflection

        We tried out several  ideas that  did not work out as planned. One idea was that we tried to add Popsicle sticks vertically as fins. This did not work and was quickly changed because it did not leave enough room for the balloon and would not be effective as a fin.  Another idea we tried was hot gluing the balloon to the car. This did not work and broke before the first trial, so it was replaced with tape. Yet another idea that was not successful was our  method of gluing the wheels onto the axles.  We used hot glue which moved when drying causing the wheels to be crooked resulting in crashes for both trials.

        Some of the ideas that we tried, worked properly and did their job well. One of these ideas was the nozzle for the balloon which worked by directing and maintaining a more steady and reliable flow of air. Another idea that worked well was the small pieces of tooth picks that we attached to the axles. They prevented the straw from rubbing the wheels and causing friction. A third idea that worked was what we used for the wheels. They were small enough that they could move easily, yet wide enough so that they would not slip.

        The most valuable part of this learning experiences for me was learning how to make the car roll smoothly and quickly, as well as making it more aerodynamic and discovering new ways to design the vehicle.

Analysis Questions

1. Newton's first law of motion, the law of inertia, is one of the reasons that our balloon car and all other objects move. Newton's first law is the reason that an amount of force is required to make the balloon car accelerate.  It started off slowly, but continued to accelerate until it hit the wall.

2. Newton's second law was also involved in this project. To optimize Newton's second law to our advantage, we had to find the best weight for the balloon car so that it would accelerate at the fastest rate. The more the car weighs, the slower it accelerates. We tried to keep the weight down.  This would be especially important at the beginning of a trial, because if it did not accelerate enough at the beginning it would no go very far.

3. Newton's third law of motion is also applicable to this project. Because every action has an equal and opposite reaction,  the air from the balloon got forcefully pushed out of the balloon and the reaction force pushed the car forward, overcoming friction to accelerate it.  This relates to the first law of motion because the force is needed to overcome the car's inertia.

Pictures

Here are a few pictures of our balloon car.

FIRST POST!!!!! (sort of)

This is my first time posting on this blog due to tactical difficulties.

Materials and Cost

List of all materials used (all found around the house, no cost)
-furniture floor protectors
-straws
-plastic skewers
-balsa wood board
-rubber nozzle
-duct tape
-hot glue

Second Trial

Very little modifications were  implemented between the first and second trial, but we planned to launch the balloon car at a better angle to compensate for the curve of its path. When preparing to launch, we forgot to turn it to fix the curve of its path and launched it straight instead. Unfortunately, it still turned too much to the right, hitting the wall at a slightly further distance than the first trial, but ultimately getting stuck in the same way.

Trial One

During the trial, the balloon car gained speed fairly well with little apparent resistance. But when it was launched, it was nudged to the right and even worse, it turned further to the right causing it to hit the wall. It continued going until the entrance of a door came up at about 9 meters and then it hit the wall on the other side of this gap, getting stuck with the balloon only have way empty.  To improve the score, we might be able to fix the curve, or nudge it to the left to counteract this effect.

Designing and Building Process

The goal for designing the balloon car is to find a way to make it aerodynamic and light weight with minimal friction.  First, we took a piece of balsa wood and glued straws to the bottom and cut the corners off the front and cut a 'v' in the back. We decided to use furniture leg pads that we hot glued to plastic skewers and put it through the straws. We then put Popsicle sticks on the sides to hold the balloon up, for a nozzle we used the rubber part of a pacifier (i think).  We blew up the balloon with a straw.

making the blog

12/3/11
I set up a blogger account after having problems with my Google password, and blogged this blog.