Our Project
![Picture](/uploads/1/4/0/7/14075844/7753345.jpg?168)
Our car after it's first race.
For this project, we made a water bottle car. We had to use a soda bottle because the inside of a water bottle could not handle the chemical reaction that would take place to propel the bottle forward.
Below are the principles that we used during the actual race and that we took into account while we were building the cars.
Below are the principles that we used during the actual race and that we took into account while we were building the cars.
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Bottle Car Race | |
File Size: | 13 kb |
File Type: | mov |
Principles Used
Friction applies because rougher wheels or rougher surfaces will increase the amount of friction and slow the speed of the car, and this experiment is all about the fastest time. We used three types of friction in this experiment: rolling, sliding, and fluid friction.
Rolling friction is friction between a wheel or rounded surface and another surface (usually the ground). Rolling friction is less powerful than sliding friction, though. This is important because rolling friction affects how smoothly the wheels will roll along the ground. Sliding friction is the friction between a object's surface area and another surface. Sliding friction applies to the wheels as well because we need to consider the tread of the wheel. If the ground is dry, you can have smooth wheels and be fine; if the ground is wet, you need wheels with more traction to allow it to slide easier. Fluid friction is the resistence an object faces against air or water. It is very similar to air resistance. This is as important as rolling friction because the less fluid friction you have, the less resistance you face and the faster you will go. Fluid Friction also comes into play when the water gets on the track and creates a small layer of water above the ground, making it more likely for the car to lose its grip and flip over.
We also use all of Newton's Three Laws. Inertia can be applied in this situation because we are fighting against the unbalanced, unequal forces (fluid friction, gravity). F = MA is very important here because we are all receiving the same amount of acceleration, so our force is mainly dependent on how much mass we have. Action/reaction, or Newton's third law, has to do with how the bottle is being propelled in the first place. The pressure put into the bottle, when expelled, pushes against the backing and propels it forward.
Rolling friction is friction between a wheel or rounded surface and another surface (usually the ground). Rolling friction is less powerful than sliding friction, though. This is important because rolling friction affects how smoothly the wheels will roll along the ground. Sliding friction is the friction between a object's surface area and another surface. Sliding friction applies to the wheels as well because we need to consider the tread of the wheel. If the ground is dry, you can have smooth wheels and be fine; if the ground is wet, you need wheels with more traction to allow it to slide easier. Fluid friction is the resistence an object faces against air or water. It is very similar to air resistance. This is as important as rolling friction because the less fluid friction you have, the less resistance you face and the faster you will go. Fluid Friction also comes into play when the water gets on the track and creates a small layer of water above the ground, making it more likely for the car to lose its grip and flip over.
We also use all of Newton's Three Laws. Inertia can be applied in this situation because we are fighting against the unbalanced, unequal forces (fluid friction, gravity). F = MA is very important here because we are all receiving the same amount of acceleration, so our force is mainly dependent on how much mass we have. Action/reaction, or Newton's third law, has to do with how the bottle is being propelled in the first place. The pressure put into the bottle, when expelled, pushes against the backing and propels it forward.