Race Day

Race day was held on Wednesday, March the 11th during first period in the foyer. I think that it was an overall great experience. This balloon car was a fresh project, nothing like the usual posters and skits we get in our classes!

Everyone came with the cars that they had built over the past month, and everyone wanted their car to go the fastest. For some im sure it went over what they thought it would, and unfortunately for some the car didn't go quite as far as they would have liked it to.

I am actually very happy with my car. I actually rebuilt the whole thing the night before, so that it would be neater looking, and possibly even better working (which came true, it didn't really turn by itself this time). My car went over the 5 metre mark both times! Though trial 2 had my car go further, I think it was because I used a different balloon. Overall I'm pretty happy with the results!

I would like to congratulate Ludwig and Jesse for getting the farthest distance. That sure was impressive!

I'd like to thank everyone, including Mr. P for making this project one of the funnest yet!

Race day was a success!

Final Thoughts Before Race Day

So race day is quickly approaching and i'm sure everyone is making the last minute arrangements to their car needed in order to succeed in the race.

My car has been coming along quite well, I somewhat fixed the wheels so that they are more sturdy. Now only a little bit of preparation has to be done so that the car moves in a straight line!
I'm thinking of possibly tweaking the front so that it's more aerodynamic.

As for how it moves, the car has no trouble moving a far distance. If only I had a proper way of measuring. Only sometimes does the car slightly curve.

After going through some of your blog entries, it seems like your cars can go quite a distance! Looks like I have some competition!!
Personally I think my car will do pretty good against all of yours, I just really hope that it doesn't mess up last minute causing it to turn during the race!!

Thanks for reading, and good luck to everyone on race day!! It'll be great!

My Final (most likely) Idea! Thoughts.

So my company has finally come up with a brand new idea (which I made a post about yesterday) that actually seems to work really well!
Lets take a closer look at what I am currently working on.

BALLOON SPEEDER



This is a recent picture taken today.

As you can see I cut open the top of the tissue box to allow more room for the balloon to take up, which means that more air can in fact be blown into the balloon.
I also made the wheels simply out of cardboard. I attached them to wooden BBQ sticks which are placed inside of straws taped under the body of the vehicle. These serve as the axles.
Note: I am going to be cutting off the parts of the sticks that stick out so much.



This is a top view of the car.

As you can see the balloon is sitting inside of the car. The end of the balloon is going through a hole in the back of the car which i cut with an exacto-knife. This helps to focus all the air to one area and keeps the balloon secured and in place.



This is what the car looks like with an inflated balloon.

NOTES:
-for some reason the wheels might sometimes cause the car to slightly move to the right. I'm still working on a solution to this and am confident that it will be resolved by race day.
-when I tested the car out, it would move across the room without much of a problem. I'm hoping to figure out a way to make it move faster.
-I am hoping to add some sort of aerodynamics to the car. Most likely at the front.

This concludes my blog post for the week. I am looking forward to keeping you all updated as I progress.
Good luck with your cars everyone!

A New Concept!

UPDATE: So I JUST went on Henricks blog and noticed that he is using a similar idea. Hopefully I can change mine a bit.

Today I thought up of a brand new idea for my balloon car.
I actually started making it! Even before I added the axles the car worked really well! I just need some bottle caps from any regular plastic bottle, so if anyone would happen to have some extras please let me know!!

Anyways the balloon car will be made from a tissue box with no top, this allows the car to be lighter AND provides more space for the balloon. Im hoping to use bottle caps for the wheels, so far I only have one, so im not able to properly test the car yet.

I noticed that by using the 2 Liter pop bottle, the bottle would still move, but not as fast or far as I would like it to.

Ill provide pictures of how the car is coming along in a few hours.

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.

Balloon Speeder Corp. - LOGO

Here is the logo for my company.
~Michael