Making a small car

[Sadza]

I have the following ingredients to make a car:

• 1 - AA size battery
• 1 - motor
• 2 - big paper clips
• 4 - small paper clips
• 1 - 8" long 1/4" wide dowel
• 1 - jinx wood
• 3 - large wooden wheels
• 2 - small wooden wheels
• 6 - elastics (varying sizes)
• 1 - piece of thermoplastic polymer (about 12 cm by 4 cm)
• 4 - thumbtacks
• 2 - pins
• 2 - pieces of copper wire
• 1 - marble
• 1 - popsicle stick
• 4 - toothpicks
• 1 - bag (optional)

This car needs to go up 1 ramp, drop a marble into a hole, continue going up another ramp and pop a balloon at the end.

Any tips on making the car go up the ramp with the least energy possible?
Thanks in advance.

[_.Pac-man._]

Gud luk mkin da car m8

[Samuel]

Make it as light as possible. Do you have to use everything?

Whats the angle of the ramps and the top speed, and weight of the car. Some simple math, and I could figure it out.

[Ptka]

Very cool sounding project.
Yeah post a bit more info on if you have to use all the materials and possibly any measurements and numbers that we could use to do the math!

[Pet]

Considering you have an odd number of wheels, and 2 different sizes, I would use on of the big ones on the axel, and use it as a gear, similar to using 1st gear on a bike. The motor will turn a lot more times than the wheels turn, but its easier on the motor then having it exert more force.

[Ptka]

Ah Pet, the little engineer from Canada.

[Pet]

What? I liked to play with model cars, motorizing them. And even back in scouts, we had little derbies. So, understanding gear ratios was a good thing.

[Ptka]

Haha thats cool.
I always played with Lego!

[Bob_magic]

well is it a wooden ramp aswell? seeing as your wheels are wooden i would suggest running the elastics around the wheels to give them traction to the ramp.

[bluesgurl]

I agree with Bob Magic and Samuel.