Made a modified Balloon Jet Car with my son (see below).
TODO: Need to add a picture/video of our modified Rocket Car here.
Arvind Gupta Rocket Car Videos:
1) Match Box Dumper Truck :
The simplest design of the lot.
Basically you need to know how to meld plastic buttons with a hot needle.
I felt that even I could do that within say max. 30 minutes.
2) Balloon Bottle Car :
3) Bottle Jet Car :
Adapting and modifying the toy car:
1) First problem was attaching the straw to the balloon using a rubber band.
The straw was much smaller than the big balloon nozzle, so tried tying the balloon using rubber-bands.
The straw was thin and got crushed by the rubber-band. Maybe I should have tried cellotape.
Tried double-sided foam tape but the glue was not sticky enough.
Fortunately I had some rubber glue and after a few tries it worked perfectly!!
2) We had a toy-car chassis so I thought why not cut out the weight of the plastic bottle.
Just attached the Balloon straw directly to a stripped down chassis of a toy-car.
This was the simplest Jet Car I could think of as (at first) I didn't see any value in the other designs.
Then I could why the bottle was used in the video :
a) in making the balloon stay in the air.
b) acting as the chassis of the car itself (it doesn't use a toy-car chassis like our prototype).
3) Second Problem : It worked to an extent but had to flick the toy car initially.
But it went nowhere near what was seen in the video.
Observed that the balloon was dragging on the ground adding to starting and rolling friction.
Also the wheels were quite broad and solid.
The Bottle Jet Car video uses thin-rim wheels with large circumference and 4 holes around the center.
Low weight, Low Friction and more distance per revolution.
How to increase distance and speed:
a) Using corrugated cardboard would make the lightest chassis/wheels.
b) Currently balloon faces forward with big end pointing forwards.
This is inevitable as jet-end needs to point backwards.
I would need to make a U-turn with the straw to get tear-drop shape pointing forward.
This might reduce efficiency due to increased friction of jet maybe??
Need to test it out.
In fact it's quite nicely challenging to try and make a better car!
What other things can be modified or changed so that it travels further?
These are things to be tried one-at-a-time as too much too soon will surely kill the golden goose.
In order of simplicity. Simplest first, complex last.
Things to Think About and Try Out with Simplest Tech. :
+ Shape (aerodynamics)
Tear-drop shape as seen in modern cars
Rocket type needle-nose shape,
Reduce Drag and Eddies
birds and bees use of winglets and eddies to increase stability/thrust.
+ Weight
Corrugated paper car (structural strength): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJFWUrUc1K4
Foam car ?
Graphite based car?
Aluminium + Paper (composites)
+ Friction
Thin-Rim wheels to reduce starting and rolling-friction
Gear system
Lubricant
Hovercraft
+ Rough terrain
pneumatic tyres,
tension-based bicycle wheel,
shock absorbers
+ Power
jet - air, sail (as in sail-boat),
internal combustion engine
solid fuel, liquid fuel, gaseous fuel
electro-mechanical - solar, battery,
TODO: Need to add a picture/video of our modified Rocket Car here.
Arvind Gupta Rocket Car Videos:
1) Match Box Dumper Truck :
The simplest design of the lot.
Basically you need to know how to meld plastic buttons with a hot needle.
I felt that even I could do that within say max. 30 minutes.
2) Balloon Bottle Car :
3) Bottle Jet Car :
Adapting and modifying the toy car:
1) First problem was attaching the straw to the balloon using a rubber band.
The straw was much smaller than the big balloon nozzle, so tried tying the balloon using rubber-bands.
The straw was thin and got crushed by the rubber-band. Maybe I should have tried cellotape.
Tried double-sided foam tape but the glue was not sticky enough.
Fortunately I had some rubber glue and after a few tries it worked perfectly!!
2) We had a toy-car chassis so I thought why not cut out the weight of the plastic bottle.
Just attached the Balloon straw directly to a stripped down chassis of a toy-car.
This was the simplest Jet Car I could think of as (at first) I didn't see any value in the other designs.
Then I could why the bottle was used in the video :
a) in making the balloon stay in the air.
b) acting as the chassis of the car itself (it doesn't use a toy-car chassis like our prototype).
3) Second Problem : It worked to an extent but had to flick the toy car initially.
But it went nowhere near what was seen in the video.
Observed that the balloon was dragging on the ground adding to starting and rolling friction.
Also the wheels were quite broad and solid.
The Bottle Jet Car video uses thin-rim wheels with large circumference and 4 holes around the center.
Low weight, Low Friction and more distance per revolution.
How to increase distance and speed:
a) Using corrugated cardboard would make the lightest chassis/wheels.
b) Currently balloon faces forward with big end pointing forwards.
This is inevitable as jet-end needs to point backwards.
I would need to make a U-turn with the straw to get tear-drop shape pointing forward.
This might reduce efficiency due to increased friction of jet maybe??
Need to test it out.
In fact it's quite nicely challenging to try and make a better car!
What other things can be modified or changed so that it travels further?
These are things to be tried one-at-a-time as too much too soon will surely kill the golden goose.
In order of simplicity. Simplest first, complex last.
Things to Think About and Try Out with Simplest Tech. :
+ Shape (aerodynamics)
Tear-drop shape as seen in modern cars
Rocket type needle-nose shape,
Reduce Drag and Eddies
birds and bees use of winglets and eddies to increase stability/thrust.
+ Weight
Corrugated paper car (structural strength): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJFWUrUc1K4
Foam car ?
Graphite based car?
Aluminium + Paper (composites)
+ Friction
Thin-Rim wheels to reduce starting and rolling-friction
Gear system
Lubricant
Hovercraft
+ Rough terrain
pneumatic tyres,
tension-based bicycle wheel,
shock absorbers
+ Power
jet - air, sail (as in sail-boat),
internal combustion engine
solid fuel, liquid fuel, gaseous fuel
electro-mechanical - solar, battery,
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