Reflection

There were three major things that did not work for our balloon car. Haley and I tried a lot of ideas for our balloon car. Our first idea was to use CD's as wheels, but then when we put on it didn't move. The wheels didn't spin, because of sliding friction, the wheels against the steel rod.. Our next idea was to change our wheels to bottle caps, but we heard that metal caps, like from a baby food jar, would work better. They didn't work because they were tilted and wouldn't roll because of rolling friction, the wheel against the floor. So we tried baby food caps on steel rods with a circle plastic jar and pony bead as stoppers. Though when we tried to move the car, it didn't budge. After we tried those as our wheels, we decided maybe that our car was to heavy for it to even move. So we decided to go from popsicle sticks to a ruler, thinking that it was too heavy fro the balloon to move the car. Though there are examples where our car did work well.

There are three major ideas where the balloon car did work well though. The first thing that worked amazing was our new wheels, 4 empty spools of thread, and we put plastic circles and pony beads to make sure the wheels wouldn't move. These were less sliding friction because the empty spool of thread didn't eub up against the steel rod as much as the metal lids did. Another thing that worked well was that the structure of the car was much lighter than the popsicle stick structure and put less weight on the wheels causing less sliding friction. The third thing that worked really well was that we added a plastic tube to inside the balloon, and cause less fluid friction because all the air wouldn't try to come out at the same time. All the things we did, our mistakes, and achievements have taught us a lesson.

During this project, Haley and I had learned a valuable lesson that will help us in every day life. There may be failures in you life, but don't give up because you can still succeed if you keep trying. Haley and I tried to make this car move many times but it never seemed to work, but we never gave up.  As Albert Einstein once said, “The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.” You can't give up, until you succeed.

Work Cited for Albert Einstein quote"

Lusk, Katie, Gary Hyink, Felicia Daniels, Alyssa Boyett and Bill Blackman. “Action and Initiative.” Hearts & Minds. 8/14/07. Hearts and Minds Network. 5 December 2010 <http://www.heartsandminds.org/quotes/action.htm>

      

Blog Analysis

a. Me and Kristen's car began to move becuase of Newton's first law of motion. It would have stayed at rest unless an outside force acted on it. Example: The lighter the balloon was, the faster it would accelerate. The more momentum is caused by more mass. So, if our car was heavy, which it wasn't, it would have kept going becuase of momentum.

b. The action force was the balloon pushing out air. The reaction force was the air pushing on the balloon.

c. The first object is the car, acting on the ground. The second objectis the balloon, acting on the car.

d. The wheels create rolling friction on the ground.

e. Newton's third law relates to the first becuase if the action force causes it to go, it will keep going and if the reaction force causes it to stop, it will stay stopped unless acted on by an unblanced force.

f. The three frictions are rolling, sliding, and fluid.

g. This affects the start (which is fluid friction) becuase the air in the balloon acts on the tip of balloon to come out, causing friction. Rolling frictiontakes place while the car is rolling, becuas the wheels roll on the ground causing friction becuase the wheels come to a stop and they just  slide on the steels rods (holding the wheels) creating friction.

Trial 2

KM and HR

12/6/11

Our ballon car traveled 4.9 meters, yesterday it only traveled 3.3 meters, it went 1.6 more meters today.It moved further today, but we tilted it before we let it go so it wouldn't turn as must and as quickly as it did yesterday. It started turning near the end and stopped right before it hit the locker. Yesterday we had to straighten the steel pole that held our wheels, because it caused our car to turn. We taped out wheels to the car and they could have moved in the middle of the trial causing it to go to the side. Our car had good wheels, but they were slow, so if we created faster wheels using less friction then our car could have gone further. Our car was good and I am happy that it acheived the distance it did.

Trial 1

During trial 1, I brought Kristen and I's balloon car to school. We were just hopiong for the best. So, we blew it up and let it go. It went 3 meters and then turned to the left and crashed into a locker. So, we figure the wheels were turned to the left slightly. That afternoon, we took Kristen's bus back to her house to fix any problems. We figured out that not only the wheels were facing towards the left, the whole front steel rod was a little bent. So, we unbent it by using a clamp tool in her basement. Once it was unbent, we fixed the plastice tube that is attached to the balloon by straightening it out so the end wasn't facing to the right somuch. This was also causing it to go to the left slightly. Once we fixed these things we were all set for trial 2 the next day.

KM and HR

Process for final car: Haley and I met at my house to redo our wheels, we thought bottle caps would be better than CD's. When we got started we realized that the wheels were un-sturdy. So our dads recommended that we use metal caps, so we used baby food jars. We found steal rods to attach the wheels to the car. The wheels still weren't sturdy though so we cut plastic circles from a lid, and added pony beads to stop the wheel from moving. When we went to test it out the car didn't move so we rebuilt our structure thinking it was to heavy. We changed it from popsicles sticks making a bed to a six inch ruler going from steel rod to steel rod. At first we taped the ballon to a little straw that was attached to the ruler, to send the air from the balloon behind the car, forcing it to accelerate the car. When the tape closed the balloon to much, and cut off the air flow, we found a plastic tub in Haley's basement to use instead of a straw. Since this had a thicker diameter un-like a straw, the balloon fit nice, and tightly around it. This tube worked better, because more air was sent out of the tube. Now that the balloon was moving the car, the only thing slowing it down was the un-sturdy wheels. Haley's mom suggested using thread spools without the thread for wheels. We tried it on the steal rods, and it worked perfectly!! Finally, the car works. 

Materials for  final car: 6" ruler, 2 plastic lids, 8 pony beads, 4 empty spools of thread, plastic tube, toilet paper roll, masking tape, and 2 steal rods. *We did not sped any money on new things, we used things from around the house.*

Outside sources: We looked at pictures on google.com to give us some ideas. 

Design Process 1

KM and RH

On tuesday during class, Haley and I began building our car. We both thought it would be a good idea to use CD's as the wheels, and cutips for the car so it would be light enough to move. When we began building our car we changed the cutips to popsicle sticks thinking that would be more sturdy. When we finished class we had a cart or a open box looking car. We got together at Haley's after school and began to finish the project. For the wheels we put a hot glue stick running between the circle of the CD, and attached the popsicle sticks to the glue stick. We added a roof to the car, and two popsicle sticks with another connecting them to hold the ballon. We had used only things we found around our houses to make the car. When we went to test it out, it didn't move. The wheels were to wobbly and our car was rather heavy. We still have to fix the wheels for our next meeting