Hybrid Car Battery Design:
This is my group (left to right): Mariana, Alyssa, and Jay. {not pictured: me, Kate}
Our car changed a lot from our original plan. While brain storming we had a string tied around the back axel that was connected to a stretched spring. This was somehow supposed to have the spring pull the string and turn the wheels making the car go. We gave up on this idea the next day. We couldn't even explain how it would work to our teacher so we scrapped it. We decided that it would be much easier to strap a balloon to a piece of cardboard. We knew that if the balloon was big enough and blown up enough that it would work. The difficult part was knowing exactly how much to blow up the balloon so that the car would stop as close to 5 meters as possible. We had to change balloons a few times because they would get stretched out and wouldn't carry the car the full distance. We also experimented with the length of the straw that was connected to to balloon (where the air came out). We even experimented with the size of our cardboard and what kind of wheels to use. It took us a while to find some good wheels and axles that worked well with it. Eventually our car came out nicely and even ended exactly at 5 meters during our presentation.
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This project had a lot of problems. One of our biggest issues was that we had to stop as close to 5 meters as possible and the strength of the balloon changed every time we blew it up.