by neil berg and michael wiener. in this project, our task was to build a car that is powered by a...

CO2 DRAGSTERBy Neil Berg and Michael Wiener

Understand

In this project, our task was to build a car that is powered by a CO2 canister. The ultimate goal was the fastest car.

Understand Cont.

The following picture defines the specifications with which the CO2 car is to be built with. The car must fit the criteria or it is disqualified

Explore

After seeing the specifications, we began to search for possible designs.

Our designs were originally based on aerodynamics.

We began looking up designs of high speed racecars because of their exceptional aerodynamics.

Define

After exploring several designs of high speed drag cars and high speed racecars, we determined a few designs that we think would work best.

The pictures to the left are the possibilities of designs that we came up with.

Ideate

Pictured to the right are two designs that we narrowed our car down to.

We felt these designs would help the most as far as aerodynamics are concerned.

Prototype

Pictured above is the final design that we settled on for our CO2 car.

This car was very aerodynamic, as well as easy to construct without causing major problems.

Prototype Pictures

Prototype Pictures Cont.

Prototype Pictures Cont.

Test Results

time Speed(m/s)

Speed(km/hr)

Speed(mi/hr)

Trial 1 1.46s 15.44m/s 55.58km/hr 34.54mi/hr

Trial 2 1.43s 15.77m/s 56.77km/hr 35.28mi/hr

Trial 3 1.34s 16.83m/s 60.59km/hr 37.65mi/hr

Trial 1 Trial 2 Trial 3 Average

Front wheel 3.01s 3.10s 2.97s

Back wheel 2.57s 2.45s 2.52s

Trial 1 Trial 2

Drag force -.118N -.123N

Refine After making and testing our first design,

we realized that our car was too heavy to win.

To increase the speed of the car we cut off a significant amount of weight from the car.

Solution

Following is a picture of our car racing in the last race of the tournament.

Our car was able to win the tournament after reducing the weight of the car