The Vipers







Creators: Erica, Randolph, and Zena
section C




Mission: Create a vehicle using only elastic energy to propel itself foward 25 feet, and return to the starting point without going out of bounds.




  • How it works
  • Special Features
  • Photos
  • Notes
  • Problems

    HOW it Works

    The rubberbands are tied to a string which is tied to an axel. As we wind up the axel up it stretches two rubberbands. The potential energy stored in the rubberbands is what powers the car to go foward. Meanwhile, we have two mousetraps fastened onto the top of the chassis. Attached to the mousetraps is a lever arm which has a line that goes to the "rear" axel. Once the rubberbands run out of energy the car coasts until the mousetraps are triggered.




    Special Features

  • The chassis: This is our groups most delighted part of the car. Our chassis is made from balsa wood and is incredibly strong for such a petite chassis. We chose this composition of triangles as our design for the chassis after being truly inspired after our trusess lecture.
  • The rubberbands: These little elastic household items are taken for granted everyday, but turns out they hold twice as much power than a mousetrap!



    • Pictures










    Notebook

    Our best times have been rather slow compared to our classy classmates. Our best times have been 26 seconds when it worked. Unfortunately our car only worked a few times.



    Problems

    In the last stage of this project, we were bombarded with many problems. It seemed as though if it wasn't one problem, it was another. Our first problem that came about was that of the steering. So we changed our wheels and went from styrophome to compaq discs that way it'd be easier to for the axels to be centered and hopefully that would solve our steering problem, and it did until our one of our axels broke.
    So, we went from bolsa wood to aluminum rods.