Reflection

A. While making our balloon car, we had many instances when it did not work out and we had to find a way to solve the problems. I think the biggest problem that we ran into was the weight if the car. When we made our experimental design, the car weighed too much because of the tissue box on it and the axles we used. This caused the balloon to be not strong enough to move the car. We were able to solve this by making a lighter frame. Another issue that came up while making the car was finding the right wheels to use. In our "next generation" design we use CDs as wheels, but we could not get them to be perfectly straight, which caused the car to turn. We changed the wheels to smaller wooden wheels, that went faster, but we still ran into the problem of turning. We were not able to fix this problem and I think that was our biggest mistake. One more conflict that got in our way while making the balloon car was not letting too much air come out of the balloon. Because our car was so light, if we let out the air to quickly, the car would become unbridled. To fix this problem, we decided to use a bottle cap to some what restrict the air coming out. Though we had some conflicts that were difficult to overcome, we were able to create a successful balloon car. 

B.  Throughout the making of our balloon car, we also had many successful ideas and designing breakthroughs. Our most important concept was to make the balloon car out of balsa wood. The balsa wood was light in weight, easy to work with, yet sturdy enough to hold the car together. Another key idea that we had was within the making of the wheels. Originally we used markers for axles and CDs for wheels. after some tests we realized that there was too much friction between the axles and the CDs. When we used the wire from coat hangers as axles, we saw a huge improvement from the markers. The coat hangers had much less friction and allowed the wheels to travel farther. An additional idea that we had was to slow down the escape of the air from the balloon. When we did our first test, we noticed that the air came out very rapidly. This caused the balloon to flip backward and the car to not move much at all. We came up with the idea of cutting a small hole in a water bottle cap and inserting the balloon through it. Then we glued the cap to the car to hold the balloon in place. This worked excellently. The cap let the air out of the balloon at just the right speed. In the creating of our balloon car we came up with many great ideas that enhanced our car to be as magnificent as it is today.
C. 
Wendy- The most valuable part of this learning experience for me was being able to work successfully and getting to be really good friends with Emily. Creating the balloon car really helped me to understand the different aspects we had talked about in science class, and because Emily and I worked so well together, I'm really glad that we got to know each other more. As we worked through the project I realized you have to take a lot of things into account like air resistant and friction. I really enjoyed doing this project because it helped me visualize what we are working on in science, and because Emily and I became good friends:)

Emily- During this project I not only helped create an amazing balloon car, but I also got to do so with my new friend, Wendy. :) I learned a lot about motion and applying it to real-life situations in the balloon car project. Making our balloon car gave me a better understanding of how friction works. This project also helped me improve on constructing and engineering as well as teamwork. I've never really met Wendy before. I'm so glad that we worked together on the balloon car project. We were very successful throughout the creating of our balloon car and had plenty of laughs along the way. I benefitted a lot from completing this project. I not only discovered and learned a lot about motion, but I also became good friends with Wendy.
And her turtle and tortoise. (hence the name of our site)