Reflection

Unsuccessful Ideas
At the beginning of building our balloon car we had many ideas. One idea was that we glue CDs to the paper towel rolls and then the cardboard to the paper towel rolls. We soon discovered that this idea had no chance of succeeding because it created too much friction. Friction is the force that one surface exerts on another when two rub against each other. Another idea was that we should put paper cups around the paper towel rolls and then glue the cups to the cardboard. This idea did fail again because there was too much friction. We had another idea that also didn't work which was to cut the paper towel rolls in half so the mass would decrease. This idea did not work because of the base of the car was too close to the wheels and therefore the two objects created friction as the car traveled.
Successful Ideas
There were many ideas that did work in our final version of our car. One of them being that we placed wooden skewers inside of straws; it increased momentum a tremendous amount. Momentum is the object that is the product of its mass and velocity. Another good idea was that we had to glue the wooden skewers that which decreased the amount of friction. We also discovered that we had to use something light so we used a lights piece of cardboard to decrease mass which is the amount of matter in an object,
Most Valuable
I think the most valuable part of this learning experience was to really understand the different parts of science. It was very cool to understand how momentum, friction, and Newton's Laws really come into play, even in the little things like balloon cars. It was easier to understand how friction and momentum can be an advantage and disadvantage during the balloon car project. Also when doing this project I found out how Newton's law work, and how to understand them differently than I did before. I was able to really breakdown each of Newton's Laws and understand how each part of the law worked. The most valuable part of this learning experience for me was to understand the different parts of science, and how momentum, friction and Newton's Laws work.