The Hipster mobile!!!!!!!!!!!
The hipster mobile is the car of the future. It has amazing acceleration and an impressive top speed. With such a powerful car we took great care in safety making the braking system top of the line. The best part is that it runs completely off elastic energy. Making it cheap to own and earth friendly.
The project
Mickey Harris, Eric Cheng, Lindsey Loeber, and I where given the task by Hyundai to build a car that could go 5 meters with a mass of at least 250g in the most efficient way without using any chemical fuels (no gas powered or battery powered). My group decided to tackle the situation head on deciding almost right off the bat to make a light metal frame car that will be powered by a small compressed air engine that we would have to make using some wood and piping.
When that didn't end very well we didn't give up. We quickly switched ideas going to elastic energy, turning our 3 wheel chariot into a front wheel drive drag car. The amount of tension on the wheel was massive and easily gave the car enough power to go 5 meters. But, when we started testing it the front wheel would just spin out making it barely move forward. We still didn't quit. We where coming up to the deadline without a working car and we decided to just completely scrap our original ideas and start from scratch. That's when we thought of the Hipster Mobile. We decide to make the frame out of light wooden frame and make the wheels have a masive amount of traction by putting tape on the CDs. Believe it or not with testing and adjusting we finished the Hipster Mobile in a short two days. |
Deffinitions
Spring Constant - This is a measure of the elasticity of a material. How far an elastic material extends or compresses is proportional to how much force is applied in each direction. The spring constant is this proportion. We used it in our vehicle to figure out how far we should pull back the band for maximum power. Measured in Newtons per Meter (N/m).
Elastic Energy - Energy stored in the stretch or compression of an elastic substance. We found this out at each meter our car went by measuring how many times the band was still wound around the front axle. Measured the same way as all other energy sources (J). Pressure - This is the amount of force exerted on a given area. Not used a whole lot in our final product, but we had to think about it extensively for our original air-compressed engine. Measured in Newtons per square meter, or, the Pascal (Pa). Power - The rate of which work is exerted. Since our car had a lot of power, it was able to move to the five meter mark faster than most of the other cars. Power is measured in watts (w). |
Reflection
Looking back at the project there is a lot I would of change. I would start with our original idea. The engine was way to complex and the cuts had to be so precise that unless you spends weeks repeatedly trying it wouldn't work. We chose a idea that was out of our skill and we should of chose a easier and much more reasonable way to power the car. The second idea of the front wheel drive wasn't very good either. We tried to just getting it done, not thinking about about wheel spin or how the rubber band would connect to the wheel.
The good things we did came when we started building the Hipster mobile. We all shared our ideas and started using the successful parts of other peoples projects. We had 2 people building the car while 2 people worked on the presentation. With every one working successfully the car worked successfully.
The good things we did came when we started building the Hipster mobile. We all shared our ideas and started using the successful parts of other peoples projects. We had 2 people building the car while 2 people worked on the presentation. With every one working successfully the car worked successfully.