SELF-PROPELLED VEHICLE

C360_2016-05-01-23-41-56-827

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The purpose of the project was to construct a vehicle that will move forward on its own power. My partner Elizaveta and I were to design a vehicle that will begin at rest, but with a designed trigger, will move forward.

The requirements for the project were that the structure, weighing less than 500g, must move 5 meters, without leaving the ground, starting in a stopped position with a trigger. It also had to pass 2 additional challenges, which were doubling our previous distance and velocity.

In our original design, we used a hard cardboard box as the base with plastic wheels attached to metal bars. It was powered by 2 balloons. We picked this design because it seemed to work decent in the previous project.

During the trials, it didn't perform so well. The structure was too heavy for the balloon to push forward to the 5 meter mark. The most it went during all the trials was 3 m.

So based on the trial results, we decided to change our original design entirely. We threw out the hard cardboard box base and the wheels. We used cardboard as the base and the wheels were CDs attached to thin and light skewer sticks. And instead of using 2 balloons, we decided to change to 1 balloon and hoped for the best.

In the final testing, the vehicle performed well. It reached the 10 meter mark. It reached the 5 meter mark in 5.82 seconds meaning it had a speed of 1.164 m/s.

Considering the trial results, with the structure only reaching 3 m, this was a huge improvement.

It definitely reached the "doubling the distance" challenge. But I am not sure about the "doubling the velocity" challenge because our previous structure didn't even reach the 5 meter mark so we didn't care about the speed... And our final vehicle wasn't super fast either...

For the vehicle to perform better next time, the last-minute repaired wheels would be more straight and parallel with other wheels.