Our Overall Coaster Car

As I have talked about in my past blog posts, recently in school my group and I have been working on coaster cars. In order to create our coaster cars we had to follow the design process. This is an eight step process, which is followed in order to successfully attain the most efficient design. Although it had taken a few weeks, eventually we were able to construct a quality coaster car.

The first step was to define the problem, which required us to review the criteria, constraints, and objective of the design. The objective of our design was to have the coaster car roll down the ramp in a straight line with the greatest acceleration. The criteria of the designs were the distance from the straight line, weight, and the distance traveled. The constraints were to use CD's as the wheels, 3/16 wooden dowels as the axles, and the coaster car had to have no power source. This step was significant because it'd help us evaluate our prototypes to see if they met all of the requirements.

After we defined the problem we generated our ideas. In order to do so we gathered all of our ideas and sketched them on graph paper. For example, I believed using a water bottle for the chassis and two axles, with one wheel on each side of the axles would be best because it'd stabilize the car so I constructed a drawing. This step helped us select our design concept because it gave us a variety of ideas to contemplate.

The third step was to select a design concept, in which we'd evaluate each of our ideas while considering which would best meet the criteria, constraints, and objective of the coaster car. In order to do so we looked at scientific evidence. For example, we decided to use styrofoam as the chassis because it'd be lightweight and according to Newtons law, the less mass, the greater the acceleration and the less friction. This step helped us develop detailed designs because we had to get a precise idea of what we'd be constructing before we actually created the designs.

The fourth step in the designing process is developing detailed designs. In order to complete this step we reviewed the measurements and materials that we'd need in order to develop a layout. This step basically gave us an overall view of how our car would be assembled and the measurements of each part. Without it we wouldn't of had a clear understanding on how the prototype should have been built.

After we developed detail designs, it was finally time to create our prototype. While following our designs, we assembled our first prototype in the way we felt it'd best meet the criteria, constraints, and objective. For example, we used a thin piece of styrofoam, two axles, one wheel on each side of the axle and one in the middle, believing this coaster car would be well stabilized and have a large acceleration because it's lightweight. This step was extremely significant because without it we'd have no prototype to evaluate.

Next, we evaluated our prototypes, placing the coaster car on a ramp and measuring the distance. We performed three different trials to get an accurate measurement of how far the coaster car had gone. This step contributed to refining the design because it allowed us to get an overall consensus on what we needed to improve and change.

The seventh step was refining the design, in which we realized what we should have changed and improved based on the data recorded during our evaluation. For example, one thing we came to realization about was the fact that we needed a thicker chassis since our first one broke, unable to support the axles of the coaster car. This step was quite prominent, seeing as it helped us create the most efficient car. This step was also required in order for us to communicate our results because we obviously needed a completed car in order to create a report. This step was basically a cycle so each time we refined the designs we'd create an entirely new prototype, evaluate it, and refine it until we ended up with the perfect car.

Finally, after refining the coaster car and completing it we communicated and processed the results. This basically meant we'd develop a report and presentation on our overall coaster car. We recorded all of our data and talked about what we did in order to construct a finished product. This step is necessary because it's basically a manual for anyone who'd want to create a coaster car as well. After following all of the steps, reviewing the requirements, and following scientific evidence we ended up with a finished product that had a styrofoam chassis, two axles, two wheels on each side of the axles, and straws for the bearings. This was our best overall design seeing as it was stabilized and traveled a fair distance.