Balloon Car                                   

Design a car using the following materials.  You may use these in any combination, but your car cannot contain other structural modifications. 

3x5 index card                   1-6 Bottle caps (with holes drilled)                                                          
5x7 index card                   1-6 Large wooden beads (with holes)                                                    
1 Straw (straight)             1-4 wooden skewers  or dowels                                                                                    
1 Straw bent                      Any amount of masking tape                                                                    
1 balloon (any size)         1-10 toothpicks / 1-10 pennies (for weight and balancing)

Tools: Tweezers, Hole Punch, Scissors, Colored Pencils/Markers

Consider these variables in your design:

Size of the wheels
Length of the straw
Height of the balloon
Size of the body (index card)
Shape of the body (index card)
Number of wheels
Attachment of wheels

Sketch your design below. Use a ruler to specify the measurements of your wheels, axels, and body.  You may want to sketch your car after you have built and tested a few models.  Name your car (keep it school appropriate).

 

 

 

 

The Race:   

Each group will get the opportunity to race their car in the hallway.  We will use a stopwatch to determine the velocity of each car.    Construct a data table on the back of this sheet to record the time of each racer.   

Name of the Car	Distance Traveled (meters)	Time (seconds)	Velocity (distance / time)

Post Lab Analysis

1. Of the cars that you observed, which car shape seemed to work best? Consider the shape of the car (square, triangular, tall, short)

 

 

2. Which of the factors seemed to affect the speed the most (or cause the car to not work). Consider design elements such as straw placement, wheel placement, shape of car.

 

 

3. What factor causes the cars to not move in a straight line?