Test Run

Construction Completed

To construct our car properly together according to our design, we used washers, wooden rods, and super/spray glue in order to efficiently connect all the parts together. Here are some images of the construction of our car.

    

Materials Aquired

   The materials we need to construct our car are listed below:

1. A sufficient amount of cardboard material (hard and durable) that is suitable for the size of our car. 
2. Strong tape (preferably duct tape) or an additional substance to efficiently stick the cardboard pieces together in order to hold a mass of over 90 pounds.
3. 3 accordingly-sized wheels that are durable and will hold up to 90 pounds or more when connected to the car and also, will not cause a significant amount of friction with the ground when in motion. 

Having listed 3 materials for the construction of our car, we feel that these materials will be enough to build a sufficient car for the upcoming derby. However, we all understand that the materials we use to construct the car must be of good quality, and also, must be durable since we will be conducting several trials with the car before the race.

Cardboard Car Design 1

We want our car to be shaped like a wheelbarrow; we believe that this shape will make it more efficient to travel in water. We also want our car to have only three wheels. We want our car to be about 5 feet 7 inches long, as all our members can fit in it. This is all that we have planned for our car so far, and we cannot wait to apply our ideas.

Initial Research Complete

   On October 26th, 2015, our group successfully completed our initial research for building our car. To summarize, what we know is this: to build a sufficient car to help us win the race, we must......

(1)Try to add as less weight to the car as possible, since according to Newton's Second Law (F=ma), the more mass on the system, the more force that it will require to accelerate faster.
(2)In addition to adding lesser weight, we need to make sure that the cardboard is stiffly built into the car and won't fall apart during the race.
(3)Include wheels which impose less friction with the ground than other wheels do, so that our car can have no trouble moving in a fast pace.
(4)Construct a design in which the car will use the air as an additional force to propel itself further when released from the ramp.

These four main points are what our group is going to focus on as of right now. We believe that as time progresses, we will begin to think of newer ideas into how we can improve the components of our car.

New Member

On October 19th, Shannon Du joined our group, successfully completing the recommended guidelines of 3 members. Planning of the car to begin soon.

Groups Formed and Blog Created

   On October 18th, Veeresh and Aditya successfully became partners for building the Cardboard Box Derby Car. In days to come, we both hope to create a sufficient cardboard car which will have the necessary features to help us compete in the derby next month.