Aim
I want to find out how to make the fastest sail boat design
Goal :
- Have the fastest and most distance covered
- Have the best visual design
- Most creative design and most creative name
Research :
The Science behind sails ( Advance Level )
Plans/ blue print :
Measurements :
- 29 cm in length
- 7 cm elevation
- 8 cm of height
The inspiration for our car was a hybrid of a drag race car and f1 car. This is because of drag cars having more uneven turbulent air or air resistance that prevents our car maintaining higher velocity and speed. We wanted to focus on acceleration more than top speed. The reason behind is that our experiment layout isn’t very long so having a quicker speed time is much more important. But we also want a bit of top speed so we built spoilers and curved edges into our car so we can cut more air resistance.
Adding f1 parts to our car can also make it more visually appealing to the car and we can add some references of f1 too. We planned to make an engine and put it inside of the car so we can add more weight so it sticks to the ground to get more grip.
Our sail will be just a typical sail that can bend around the air to maintain its shape while withstanding the harsh powerful wind.
Hypothesis :
I predict that our design will be one of the fastest sailboats in our class due to our aerodynamics that can provide less air resistance.
Variables :
Independent Variables :
Things we control on the experiment to change the results of our experiment ( How we make our car faster from our design)
Dependent Variables :
Things we measure and record for the experiment ( How we record our time and speed of our car )
Controlled Variables :
Using the same type of equipment to build our project.
(Same materials or equipment :
Method :
Equipment
- 1x Hot Glue Gun
- 1x One Big Piece Of Cardboard
- 1x Black Paper
- 1x Any colour paper
- 1x Black Marker
- 1x A Sail Boat Cart Template
- 12x popslice Sticks
- 1x plastic bag
- 1x roll tape
Instructions :
Note : I didn’t create this car, my team did due to injury
Creating The Car Component
- Gather All of your equipment
- Cut two pieces of 29 cm long by 7 cm height triangle cardboard ( You can make it into a rectangle first and then cut it into equal triangles)
- Cut a 26 cm long by 7 cm length cardboard rectangle
- Tape the triangles on top of the platform of the car
- Tape the roof into the car
- Use hot glue to stick the different pieces of the cardboard ( Make sure you don’t hot glue it from the ground or platform of the car.
- Use the papers to create your own designs like numbers or logos. (For our one we tried to make the redbull design)
Creating The Sail Component :
- Gather All of your equipment
- Put 4 popsicle sticks on the bottom and the top
- Tape it on the bag
- Create 2 hole on the top of the bag and 2 hole on the bottom of the bag ( make sure the hole are positioned in the middle ) [If the popsicle sticks are in the way you can put under it or over it]
- Put the bamboo sticks on the hole
- Tape the bamboo sticks onto the bag and popsicle sticks.
- The sail should swaying forward which means it might work !
Creating The Spoiler :
- Gather All of your equipment
- Cut two 4cm long pieces of cardboard
- Cut one 7 cm long piece of cardboard (Long Cardboard)
- Cut two small squares and attach them from the sides of the long cardboard
- Attach the two 4cm on the bottom of the long cardboard (This should look like a typically spoiler)
Results :
Our car travelled 7.2 m in 13.0s
7.2 meters / 13 secounds= 0.553846154 0.553846154 x 3.6 = (1.99384615 kph)
What happened ?
For the first test we did it was a bit slow that blew our exceptions. I think it’s due to our cardboard pieces interfering with the wheels which made them harder to spin. The sail wasn’t mounted to car properly which cause to sway in the side.
For the secound the test we did, it flipped into it’s side because we turned the sail around. This is because we thought that it will provide more thrust which cause to travel faster.
Discussion/Explanation :
What are the forces acting on your wind racer?
I think drag, thrust and air resistance are mainly contributing with our wind races due to the shape of our car attracting the forces of drag. We used a leaf blower to provide our car thrust to push it forward which was one of the main factors of forces acting upon our car. Air resistance was also contributing due to our sail being the tallest component of our car and the surrounding air was making our sail sway into the sides. It also provides a slight bit of thrust. Weight wasn’t really contributing due to our car being so light and agile that it didn’t provide grip to our wheels. If we would’ve had greater balanced weight it would’ve forced the car to slightly stick to the ground instead of flipping to its side.
- Thurst
- Drag
- Air resistance
- Weight
Are they balanced/ unbalanced?
Our forces are a majorly unbalanced mass of components of our car. The sail was almost or if not bigger than our car. The leaf blower provided the thrust and was hitting the sail which caused unbalanced forces of thrust and drag acting on the car. The thrust was far greater than our drag which relies on just the shape of our car. The air resistance and weight was also unbalanced but just a bit as well.
What is net force ?
Net Forces are all of the amount of forces acting into something. They use the units of newtons that are the sum of all of the forces combined
How does this relate to the forces acting on your wind racer?
It relates to how much newtons and forces are acting on our car. In my perspective, I think there were too many newtons on our car that were a bit smaller that couldn’t handle a high number of newtons. Our parts need to be small so less unbalanced forces are acting in our car. The net force affected our car very greatly due to the sheer force that car had to endure.
What are the strength of forces acting on it at different stages and How do the forces acting on the wind racer affect the motion of the wind racer at different points?
Start
The start was the fastest stage for our car due to it being closer to the leaf blower which was providing our thrust. It was also part of our plan to focus on the acceleration instead of the top speed. The thrust force was fairly bigger that drag force which provided speed and distance for our car.
Middle
Our car was kinda slowing down a bit due to it being much further off the leaf blower. The unbalanced forces were also acting more intensely in our car which caused us to turn left due to our sail swaying into the left. The force of drag started to get bigger while thrust force started to get diminished.
End :
Our car stopped due to the leaf blower not providing thrust any more due to the distance. The drag force was taking over which caused the car to a complete stop as there was no more thrust force.
Why do you think results may vary in the class?
I think the reason that our results may differ from other cars compared to different students. It is that people had unique designs that make us break their experiment. They also have different types of materials that they used that might help from the forces that are acting on their car. Using the leaf blower correctly can also come into play because the car moves when you provide the right aim distance to make the car move from the leaf blower.
Formula :
Calculating Speed
V=D/T
Calculating Forces
(/) = Dash means divide
M=F/A = Mass
A=F/M = Acceleration
F = M x A = Forces
Forces Explained Videos
Conclusions :
Improvements ?
- Preparations ( We rushed some of the parts which caused our car to be slower)
- Design and Stability of our sail ( Our sail wasn’t mounted to the car properly which caused it to sway into its side)
- Utilising our equipment and materials ( We wasted a lot of materials that we didn’t even put it on our car)
- Placements of our components and parts. ( Our parts were interfering with the wheels caused it not to spin properly. )