Radioactivity

Gladstone 2017 Science Olympics

Gladstone 2017 Science Olympics      Balloon Powered Car

Task: Working in your group you are to construct a balloon powered car to travel as far as possible. It must travel a minimum distance of 2 meters on the ground along the course from the starting line to get full marks and a maximum distance of whatever you can manage to try and win the olympics.

       

Limitations

• The car should be sturdy and not fall apart when in use.
• The car should go straight.
• The car should go as far as possible.

·       The car must look like a car and have a body and wheels. It must have a minimum of 3 wheels.

·       The balloons are to be the only source of energy for the car.  A maximum of two balloons may be used on the car.  No external sources of energy are permitted including, but not limited to, push starts, blowing on the car, batteries, solar cells, elastics, springs etc.

• The car must stay on the ground
• The course consists of a concrete surface either the tennis courts, running track or breezeway. 

Design Method

1. Do some background research on balloon-powered cars. Do an internet image or video search for "balloon powered car" and your group will see many different designs, made from different materials. This can inspire your group design.
2. Think about what materials you want to use for your car, and how you will connect the different pieces together. For example, what do you want to use for wheels?
3. Make sketches of possible designs on paper before you start building and get agreement on which model your group wants to go with. Have an open mind and consider all options. Try and get everyone in the group to offer their thoughts by taking turns to speak.
4. Remember to test your car and then adjust the design to improve it.

Materials permitted:

Body - plastic bottles, aluminum pop cans, juice boxes, cardboard, paper, tape

Wheels – bottle caps, cds, cardboard, tape, use anything not designed as a wheel (ie you can’t use toy car wheels)

Axle – straws, chopsticks, string, toothpicks, tape

Core Competencies – Building a balloon powered car

Competencies come into play when students are engaged in “doing” in any area of learning. This includes activities where students use thinking, collaboration, and communication to solve problems, address issues, or make decisions. The ultimate goal is for learners to employ the core competencies every day in school and in life, and for the core competencies to be an integral part of the learning in all curriculum areas.

This is an engineering design and build project and as such the students should design, build, test and adjust in the process known as Iteration.

Design Tips:

Wheel axle connection?

Air going backwards in order to make car go forward -

Streamlined body?

Is car weight a factor…

We did two demonstrations

First we took notes on hydrophilic and hydrophobic soap, and phospholipids.

The cell membrane

-       Is made of protein and fat. 

-       The membrane is a bilayer of phospholipids. This means there are two layers.

-       The phospholipids are made of a phosphate and a lipid

-       Lipid=fat.

-       Lipids are HYDROPHOBIC  , water hating

-       Phosphate part is  HYDROPHYLLIC

Water- loving.

Proteins are scattered in the membrane and they

assist the cell  to

Allow things in and out. 

Lab: A demo of hydrophyllic and hydrophobic properties of three substances.

Substances:

1.      Soap – has two sides.  One is hydrophobic and the other is hydrophyllic

2.     milk –is a suspension of fat droplets suspended in water.

3.     food dye -  loves water.  Hydrophyllic,  

We added drops of food dye to milk and then we added a drop of soap  Next, we wrote our observations and hypothesis.  The teacher evaluated the hypothesis.

Plant Intelligence