This is the basic model we started out with. The steps we used to build it were by taking the card board and cutting out a strip in the back to put a skewer as the axle. Then you attach the cd's on with duct tape as well as a medium thickness rubber band for power. Then you attach a piece of tape to the axle to get the rubber band to "catch" to it so that you can wind back the rubber band and test the car.
Modification 1: Here is our second to last model. Before this, we made some modifications that were unsuccessful, so here are three of the four successful modifications we made that were on this particular model
One modification here is that we added a triangle to the front of the car with skewers. This helped to keep our car from flipping
Modification 2:
A second modification we made was to roll the duct tape around the axle to keep the wheels extra sturdy
Modification 3:
A third modification we made was that we cut out part of the cardboard in a parabola shape to minimize mass while stilling having a long cardboard structure. This helped keep our car from flipping as well as keeping the car balanced and straight
Modification 4:
Our fourth modification was that we cut the rubber band so that we could roll it more. We also had a thicker rubber band. This helped to give more power to the car
This video was shot from the side so that we could tell what the distance it traveled was and at what velocity. Shooting it from the side helped us determine what the speed of the car was. To determine the velocity, we put the distance it traveled over the time it took to travel that distance. To determine it's acceleration, we put the difference in speed over the difference in time.
The top part of this graph shows the velocity of the car meters per seconds. Here our car increased in velocity as it was driving across the ground because of momentum, speed and acceleration.
The bottom graph shows the acceleration of our car. Here our acceleration increased until the very end until our car started slowing down because
Equation:
