Car Plan and Justification

Material List

• CDs (x4) - Staples/at home
• Wooden block (x1) - Home Depot
• Wooden sticks (x2) - Home Depot
• Mouse/Rat traps (x2) - Home Depot
• Super and/or Hot glue
• String
• Rubber bands

Drawings

Justification Statement

The car that we designed will be propelled using two rat traps and have CDs as wheels. We decided to use rat traps because of the design of the rat traps themselves. The force from the snapping of the traps, we will, shall be enough to get the car over the hill and onto the other side. The CDs will be used as wheels because of their thinness, which will slide with little air resistance, its little inertia rotation. 

Forces: The forces that will act upon our car include the force of gravity, the normal force at an angle (since the initial position is on an angled wooden platform), the force of friction, and the applied force from the rat traps. The force of gravity and the normal force will be the same, but the friction force will be larger than the applied force since the car will not be moving at a constant speed.

Motion: The change in the velocity of the car will occur at the initial starting point. It will begin with a velocity of zero, and then will start to speed up due to the force of the rat traps. Thus, the velocity of the car will be speeding up in a positive direction until it is no longer in motion after going up the platform

Mass/Weight: Mass and weight affects the performance of the car due to impulse and change in momentum. If the car is really heavy, then the change in velocity will decrease. Likewise, if our car is very light, then the change in velocity will increase. We need to be careful when planning how much our car will weigh.

Newton's Laws: During this competition, Newton's 1st Law applies since the car will always remain at rest until it is provoked by the force of the rat traps. And on the other spectrum, it will always remain in motion until another force stops it. Newton's 3rd Law also applies if the two cars collide, for example. The forces exerted by the two will be the same no matter the mass or weight or change in velocity, which is the 3rd Law.

Momentum/Impulses: At the top of the hill, the two cars will most likely hit each other. But more specifically, the forces exerted by the two objects will be the same according to Newton's Third Law. Their impulse will also be the same since the time and the force shall be identical. However, the change in velocity will vary according to the mass of both cars. Whichever car is heavier will sustain more damage to the opposing car.

Energy: From what I've researched, I know that kinetic energy is the energy of motion. For the sake of this competition, I believe that kinetic energy (and velocity) will affect the distance required for the car to stop.