The+Wolves


 * 3/29/11:**Our goal is to make a car that changes gears. So far we have built a body made of t-core, with three wheels. It has one back wheel and two front wheels. It has rear drive, meaning that the gear will be attached to the back axle. The wheel has multiple gears attached to the back.

This is our solar charging station plan. It's backwards, because we used Photo Booth. Basically, we have a solar panel surrounded by reflectors. We will adjust the angle by having towers of various angles, which we will switch based on the angle of the sun.
 * 4/11/11**: We have attached our motor. Using the cardboard tracks, the motor will slide down the gears. We will attach rubber bands to make this happen.
 * 4/12/11:** We are working on the motor slide aspect today. We are planing on using rubber bands to aid the motor in sliding down the gears. The problem is that the rubber bands are making the motor slide down too fast, which makes the gear on the motor not lock into the gears on the wheel. One idea we had to solve this is to use some aluminum metal wire (which is very bendy) to slow down the motor. We would put a spiral of it on the back of the motor to slow down the motor. Another idea is to make a lever to push the motor down to make. We also discovered that the car will not move forward in it's smallest gear. This isn't the end of the world, because we have the three other gears. We can just only have three gear changes.


 * 4/15/11:** The angle of the sun on 5/31/11 at 12:00 pm (when we have to charge our batteries) is 70°(acording to []). This means our solar charging station needs to be at a 158.6°ish angle to the sun. Today we put tin foil on our solar panel reflectors, and we are still working on making the motor slide slower. We had the idea to put a sand paper covered stick which would rub against the car to make friction, which would make the car slide slower.


 * 4/19/11:** Today we fidled with the sand paper stick some more, and got rid of a stick that was pushing down on the motor. And then, ﻿**We actully got the car moving!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!** ﻿Granted, it's not moving very fast, but it's progress. Tommy sugested we put a smaller gear on our motor, and that way it will be eaiser for it to start up. I'm very exicited. Erin is working on our solor panel reflectors, and they look awesome. Hopefully they will work! We will have some data coming soon!

So, just in case we can't get our car rolling, Owen has started working on a smaller (and hopefully faster) car that dosen't change gears. Also, The solar charging station is coming toghther nicely. Erin was testing it with a lazer (from a romote control) today. The sides are a bit too steap, so we have to fix that.
 * 4/21/11: ** Today, I tried to do some time trials on our car. I only got to do once before it stopped working but the result is: 11 feet in 12.34 seconds. So about 1 second per foot. It's not looking good for a 60 foot race. I think the car is too heavy. Which really sucks, because when you hold it up, it changes gears just fine. Anyways, below is a updated map of our car.
 * 4/25/11: ** Today we decided that the changing gears car probally isn't going to work. So we focused on working on our smaller, one gear car. We did a test run, and the car is very fast (at least compared to our last one) but the wheels didn't have any traction. Erin tried putting rubber bands on the wheels to increase traction, but the came off and got tangled around the axle. Here is a picture of or car so far:

· 1 motor -provided · 3 moving gears: 1 ten-tooth pinion gear, 1 thirty-tooth follower gear, and 1 sixty-tooth gear in between. -Provided · 2 thirty-tooth stabilizing gears (non-moving)- provided · 3 plastic beads -2 cents · 9 inches of small dowels – 1 cent · 1 rubber band -1 cent · 2 popsicle sticks- 0.4 cents · 1 slide switch -50 cents · 1 battery housing case -provided · 1 toothpick -1 cent · 1 wire -recycled from Christmas lights · 4 1/8 x 3/4 washers – 16 cents · 18 inches of aluminum axle – 12.6 cents · 2 wheels with rubber traction- 60 cents · 2 5/8 inch eye-hole rings-30 cents · T- core -recycled from political signs · <span style="color: #070906; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">1 ½ inches of wooden slats -0.2 cents · <span style="color: #070906; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">2 wheels, no rubber traction- 50 cents · <span style="color: #070906; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">4 inches of straw (the drinking kind) – 2 cents · <span style="color: #070906; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Cardstock- recycled · <span style="color: #070906; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">1 index card- 2 cents <span style="color: #070906; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in; text-indent: -0.25in;">4 more inches wooden slats <span style="color: #070906; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in; text-indent: -0.25in;">pen cap <span style="color: #070906; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in; text-indent: -0.25in;">1 ich wood dowel
 * 4/28/11:** Today we put some more traction on the wheels of our car. We cut the rubber part off of another wheel, and cut it so it fit on our wheel. While Owen was doing that, he cut his hand, But he's okay now. Erin is working on the towers to ajust the angle of the solar car. We had to move the motor on the car back, because the rubber we added to the wheel rubs against the gear. We also added a third, very large gear to the motor to make it run faster.
 * 5/3/11:** Today we made the motor more secure on the car. We also atached the eye rings on the bottem of the car. We moved the battery pack so it would act as a counter weight for the motor. Erins making some flames to go on the back of the car to make it long enough, as well as making it look awesome. Here is our car:
 * 5/4/11:** Today I worked on the parts/cost list for our car, while Erin colored our awesome flames, and Owen made a motor cover to make our car look pretty (very important). We still need to do some time trials, I suppose we are going to do that tomorow. Anyways, here is the parts/cost list so far:
 * <span style="color: #070906; display: block; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 18pt; line-height: 115%; text-align: center;">Vehicle part list:

<span style="color: #070906; display: block; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 18pt; line-height: 115%; text-align: center;">Solar Charging Station Part List: · <span style="color: #070906; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Cardboard- Recycled · <span style="color: #070906; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">T- core- recycled from political signs · <span style="color: #070906; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">1 square foot tin foil- 0.3 cents · <span style="color: #070906; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">24 inches aluminum axles- 16.8 cents · <span style="color: #070906; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">10 inches wood, centimeter square- 1 cent · <span style="color: #070906; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">2 feet masking tape- 2 cents · <span style="color: #070906; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">2 feet duct tape- 4 cents · <span style="color: #070906; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">1 blocking diode –provided · <span style="color: #070906; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">2 rechargeable batteries- provided <span style="color: #070906; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in; text-indent: -0.25in;"> · <span style="color: #070906; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">3 alligator clips- 75 cents <span style="color: #070906; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in; text-indent: -0.25in;">1 inch velcro || I am also working on a drawing which will hopefully end up on our car, which we have named ** The Flame **.
 * 5/5/11:** Today, I continued to work on the parts list while Owen and Erin did some time trials. And the results are:
 * Trial || Distance || Time || Speed ||
 * 1 || 30 ft. || 5.2 sec || 5.9 ft/s ||
 * 2 || 30 ft. || 5.1 sec || 6 ft/s ||


 * 5/9/11:** Today I countinued to work on the technical report while Erin tested our car. We had a bit of trouble, we ran into some walls, the flames broke off, at some point Erin had to tackle the car to keep it from running into a wall. But I think it still works. Here's a picture of our car:

Owen also added this trident to the front of the car, which looks pretty awesome, but it rubs against the fishing line, so I will probally have to rip it of while he isn't looking. We also updated our parts list, but it didn't save, so that's annoying. We also tried testing our solar charging station, and we got the batery to go from 1.85v to 2.16v in 35 minutes. We might need to improve our solar charging station or hope for a very sunny day, because at that rate it will take five hours to charge our batterys.
 * 5/10/11:** Today we ran some more time trails:
 * Trial || Distance || Time || Speed ||
 * 1 || 20m || 9.6 sec || 2 m/s ||
 * 2 || 20m || 9.6 sec || 2.1 m/s ||

We also did some time trials: Right now, Owen is running around, making something. I don't know what, but I hope it's not for the car.
 * 5/11/11:** Today, we worked on the aesthetics of the car. We added a drawing of flames and gears to the body and cut down Owen's trident to 2 fangs. Owen also added a whistle to the top of the car, but I don't think we will go quite fast enough for it to whistle. We also modified the angle of our solar station. Here is our car and solar panel:[[image:Photo_31.jpg width="364" height="274"]][[image:Photo_30.jpg width="367" height="277"]]
 * Trial || Distance || Time || Speed ||
 * 1 || 30 ft. || 5.3 sec || 5.7 ft/s ||
 * 2 || 30 ft. || 5.2 sec || 5.8 ft/s ||
 * 3 || 30 ft. || 5.3 sec || 5.7 ft/s ||
 * 5/12/11:** Today we didn't do much, because we are basically done. Owen added "blood" (red marker) to the fangs. We also did some more time trials:
 * Trial || Distance || Time || Speed ||
 * 1 || 30 ft. || 5.5 sec || 5.5 ft/s ||
 * 2 || 30 ft. || 4.9 sec || 6.1 ft/s ||
 * 3 || 30 ft. || 5 sec || 6 ft/s ||

We also took some measurements: 44mm long 15mm wide 224.3 grams eye holes 25cm appart Race tommorow! Hope we win!


 * 5/13/11:** So today we raced, and I'm pretty sure we came in second. So we are going to try to glue larger whels to the existing wheels, which will make the car go faster. So today we ran around trying to make/find larger wheels.


 * 5/15/11:** Oh my gosh, I just heard that we won! Yay!

It actually went slower, so we are going to take them off soon.
 * 5/16/11:** So today we worked on the car more, now that we know that we actually have to race it. We added bigger wheels (from 2 inches to 3 inches) and did some time trials:
 * Trial || Distance || Time || Speed ||
 * 1 || 30 ft. || 5.5 || 5.4 ft/s ||
 * 2 || 20 m. || 17.0 || 3.5 ft/s ||


 * 5/17/11:** Today we did a time trial with wheels with a diameter of 2 1/2 inches. They still went slower, so we changed the whells back.
 * Trial || Distance || Time || Speed ||
 * 1 || 20 m. || 8.3 sec || 7.2 ft/s ||
 * 5/18/11:** Today was the last day of class. We glued on some new hubcaps, and re-glued on our flames. We're ready for the competiotion!