Balloon Speeder - CONCEPT

This is the first in a series of blog entries which will be talking about the process of the balloon car assignment I am currently working on.

So far I have currently thought up of three concepts for my balloon car. However the first and the second are very much alike.

First Concept:

sorry about the quality, everything written is explained below!

For this car, I could use a normal water bottle as the main body of my car, however I have come to the realization that it may not be big enough to allow for a bigger balloon, which would ultimately result in more power. I think that if I cut open the front of the bottle, I MIGHT be able to use a bigger balloon.

This small bottle would allow the car to be very light, possibly meaning that it may travel further if I get it right.

*I’m not sure if bottle caps would allow the wheels to move as freely as I would like them to. If I could get a hold of four “K’Nex” wheels, then the car may travel better.

*The open end (left side on the drawing) might be too big for the end of the balloon, it may cause the balloon car to move in all sorts of directions because the direction of the air is not exactly regulated. I’m still trying to find a solution to that.

Second Concept:

This car is very similar to the one above, so I won’t go into too much detail. What’s different is that I would be using a larger (TWO-LITRE) plastic bottle. I’m not sure whether it’ll be too heavy, but I’ll test it out soon.

I’m going to see how it works with one regular balloon blown up to fill as much of the inside as possible. Then I’ll try it with two of those long balloons. Whichever idea works better will be the one I stick to.

Third Concept:

This car is probably the simplest one of the three, but if it works as required, then I may just end up using it! The balloon would be secured to a cardboard paper towel tube as shown above, either using tape or anything else that would do a good job keeping the balloon in its place. Hopefully whichever wheels I choose to use, they could act as weights to possibly help keep the car down, and not fly off.

I will continue to update this blog, and add more concepts if they come up.

-Michael F.