Sickle Car N

thingiverse

We tracked every ounce of energy flowing into this project from start to finish. It all began with understanding that energy can't be conjured or annihilated; it simply exists, waiting to be transformed. This epiphany led us astray, causing us to assume that the energy injected into a car's motor is solely channeled into kinetic motion. But as we worked through two practice problems, our misconceptions started to unravel. We began compiling a list of all the places where energy could be slipping away and what it would be redirected towards instead - thermal dissipation, frictional losses, and rotational energies. The ultimate goal was to meticulously follow every last bit of energy from the battery powering the fan right on through to the car itself using nothing but physics. To achieve this, we leveraged Pasco capstone, a tool specifically designed for measuring various phenomena and plugging in equations to calculate different forms of energy.