Define the problem
The goals were to
1: Make the car move a meter
2: Has to be powered by a hydrogen cell or solar panel
3: Goes the fastest in a 3 meter race
1: Make the car move a meter
2: Has to be powered by a hydrogen cell or solar panel
3: Goes the fastest in a 3 meter race
Generate Concepts
Develop a solution
Construct and Test Prototype
For the car moving one meter part, was a success and a failure. Inside the lab my preformed great and was the fastest but as soon as the front Gear met the friction of the ground and pavement it got stuck and didn't allow the car to move. but a small improvement like making the body longer and adding an extra axle in the front would have fixed this problem.
Evaluate the Solution
My experience with the power options was pretty good. I liked the hydrogen fuel cell the least because it took too much time to charge and did not have enough power ti move my motor for a long time. I really liked the combination of batteries and a solar panel because it gave me the most power and moves the motor the fastest.
Car moves very fast but does not have much torque, rolls in lab very well but not outside.
In order to make my car work i would have to extend the body to make space for another axle, to put another wheel on so the gear wont grind on the ground. Also I could up the gear ratio even more so i could get even more speed.
I made the mistake of not putting a wheel in the front to compensate for the the friction of the gear grinding on the gravel. ( but my car did great inside)
The main things I learned was how to build with VEX better and how use a bread board to power things and make circuits. I also improved my gear ratio skills.
Present the solution
This is my basic build before i added the wires and connected everything
This is the car after hooking everything up and doing my first test
This is the final product after all improvements and a fix to the gear ratio
One limitation of of renewable energy is the cost. the cost of harvesting the energy from renewable energy is more than the easier, worse, more polluting option of coal. Also the amount of space needed to operate them is a limitation.