BALLOON-POWERED CARS

This project is based on cars and their wheels. We have decided to create balloon-powered cars out of recyclable materials. We will be testing to see which wheels work best. We shall be testing speed and length. After, we shall collect information and reach our final conclusion.

DO THE WHEELS OF THE CARS AFFECT THE SPEED AND DISTANCE OF THE CAR?

IF THE WHEELS ARE BIGGER, THEN THE CAR WIIL MOVE FASTER AND TRAVEL FARTHER

VARIABLES

• The independent variable is the size of the wheels.
• The dependent variable is the length that the car travels.

MATERIALS

• recyclable gatorade bottles
• straws
• sticks
• tape
• balloons
• hot glue
• plastic tubing
• bottle caps

CAR BUILD PROCEDURES

• Get materials together.
• Get the bottle and poke a hole in the back.
• Put the bottle flat and get 2 straws and glue them on the bottom of the bottle. Make sure to cut the straws so that they are not to long.
• Then put 1 stick in each straw. Also cut the sticks as well so that they are not too long.

CAR BUILD PROCEDURES (CONTINUED)

• Then apply wheels and cut a whole in the center and hot glue them to the sticks edges.
• Make a hole on the side of the bottle.
• Insert a tube in that hole, and the hole you made earlier in the back.
• Tape the tube in the back to face down and tape a balloon to the other side of the bottle.

For the procedures with measuring the balloon-powered car, put 1 car on the track and let it go when the balloon is filled. This experiment is testing which wheels, when put on a car, will be more efficient on helping the car travel 1 meter. After the car stops, measure the distance traveled. Have 3 trials per car and then average the 3 distances and put it on a graph.

Conclusion

The purpose of this experiment was to prove that larger wheels will make a balloon car go faster then if wheels were smaller. According to the dat the hypothesis was partially correct. The data showed that the larger wheel did go farther but the smaller wheel came in second. Therefor the experiment was inconclusive. Farther investigation should be performed. More cars per wheel size should be made and more trials should be tested.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

• We would like to thank each member of our group for bringing and helping to complete the project
• We would like to give special thanks to Mrs. Loor for helping to build the cars and for helping us get through our difficult times of failure.

THE END