What is a hybrid car?
A hybrid car is a car that can move using a source of energy that isn't gasoline. For this project, we had to create a hybrid car. In my group we decided to use rubber bands and their elasticity to power our car. As well as this, we had to make our car move exactly 5 meters. This was more of a challenge. We had to calculate the potential energy from the rubber band so that we could find how many times to wrap it up. This part took a lot of trial and error because of many unexpected challenges.
See it in Action!
Concepts Used
Elastic Potential Energy - the potential energy stored as a result of a change of an elastic object - Espring=1/2Kx^2
Spring Constant - how stiff / strong anything elastic is - K=Fd
Thermal Energy - energy that comes from heat - Thermal Energy=Total energy - potential energy - kinetic energy
Power - the amount of energy used per unit of time - P=w/t
Velocity - The speed traveled in a certain direction - V=d/t
Spring Constant - how stiff / strong anything elastic is - K=Fd
Thermal Energy - energy that comes from heat - Thermal Energy=Total energy - potential energy - kinetic energy
Power - the amount of energy used per unit of time - P=w/t
Velocity - The speed traveled in a certain direction - V=d/t
Reflection
For this project we ran into quite a few problems. One problem we faced was not having enough traction on our wheels. To fix this we first had to make our weeks thicker. We did this by adding cardboard to either side of the wheels. On top of that, we originally tried adding duct tape to our wheels. This worked amazing, the first run we ran our car with it, then it lost all its traction. So, we added rubber bands to all the wheels. Another problem we ran into was with our car was that it didn't look very good at first. The lines weren't straight and the wheels weren't even. We ended up cleaning it up so that our final product would look nicer and in the end, go straighter.
In this group I feel that I was much more focused. I was able to initiate things that needed to be done. However, I found it hard to not just give up on things that didn't work in this project. I also got kind of bored of looking over the same things repeatedly so I would sometimes get distracted by other groups and start working with them a little bit.
In this group I feel that I was much more focused. I was able to initiate things that needed to be done. However, I found it hard to not just give up on things that didn't work in this project. I also got kind of bored of looking over the same things repeatedly so I would sometimes get distracted by other groups and start working with them a little bit.