Build a rubber-band powered vehicle to travel the furthest possible distance.
Our Solution:
We developed a car where the rubber band was fixed at one end and then straddled a spinning gear at the other end where by reversing the car the rubber band would wind around itself building potential energy. The strength of this design lied in its capacity to store potential energy in the rubber band in a fashion that did not compromise the integrity of the rubber band.
Picture: Rubberband Car "design"On the day of testing, we were given three trials where you would have a certain amount of time fixing, customizing and updating the rubber band powered car based on gathered analysis from each trial. Not only that, but this "prep" time enabled other groups to "gather" information from other designs around them, thus allowing for improvement with each passing trial. This could be called the test drives for the products and their inventors. But with each trial, it seemed that everyone was improving.
The first trial was very successful, yielding the farthest distance with the use of the rubber band. At this we took a gamble, adding more to the design. Essentially, this caused our car to travel a shorter distance while other cars began to gain in distance to it's "record" distance. And finally the last trial wielded the farthest distance out of all our trials, as well as the trials of the other groups. We proved our design to be successful, and in a real situation also "usable" in the eyes of the buyer when looking on to these test drives.
This project did not call for any sort of programming, but instead was one that "broke us in" to the concept of lego construction and design. A learning experience it was, and a successful project it had been.
