Whenever it comes to powering a race car, there are a lot of other alternatives. Some cars employ gasoline, diesel fuel, rocket fuel, or other combustible material while some have used solar power to charge batteries. You can power a little race car along with your kids with the help of a rubber band or a mousetrap. Transform a pile of trash into a toy car and watch it go. It might not appear like it at first, but a simple balloon car is stuffed with physics and engineering concepts. In the amazing STEM Activity, we’ll show you how to build your own Balloon-Powered Car and then use air pressure to zip it across a surface.
About Build A Balloon Powered Car Activity
Do you believe you could ever make a car powered by nothing but air? A balloon-powered car is accelerated forward by air emerging from a balloon, and it is exciting and simple to construct with materials you already have around your house. Can you believe how you would want your own balloon-powered car to look? Can you invent the car that will travel as far as possible? You can even estimate your car’s speed using your smartphone. So get ready to grab some simple materials to bring your idea to life!
Supplies Required To Get Started
- Balloons of varying size
- Body of car: sturdy paper cup
- Wheels for car: four water bottle caps
- Axle of car: wooden skewers or straws
- Attachment for wheels to axle: clay or dry sponge
- Straw for attaching the balloon to the body of the car
- Rubber bands to secure the balloon to the straw
- Measuring tape for measuring distance
- Paper to record results
Steps Involved In The Balloon Powered Car Activity
1. Help your kids to poke four holes into the sides of the paper cup. This is where the wheels will attach, so they should be low on the paper cup and directly across from each other.
2. Then use two straws or two wooden skewers to drive through the holes in the car body, creating the axle.
3. Now attach your wheels. If using straws, place clay, or a small chunk of dry sponge into the inside of bottle caps to attach to the straws. If using wooden skewers, you will need to ask an adult to help you make small holes in the bottle caps to slide the skewers through.
4. Tape a straw onto the top of the paper cup. Attach the open end of the balloon to the straw on the front end of the car and secure it tightly using rubber bands.
5. Assign a starting line for your car.
6. Now carefully blow up the balloon through the straw, pinching the straw so that air doesn’t escape.
7. Put your car on the starting line, and let go of the balloon.
8. Estimate the distance your balloon car traveled.
9. Run four more trials to get specific outcomes.
10. Find the average of all trials.
11. Pick some varying sizes of balloons to examine how the amount of air used changes the distance your car travels. Run five trials for each balloon size.
Science Behind It
What makes a car move ahead? What about a rocket? How does something so extensive get in motion? Although fuel, like gasoline, is probably your response, there’s some physics behind why burning that fuel works. Newton’s third law says that for every action there is an equal but opposite reaction. To learn how this refers to motion, let’s look at the car example. When the fuel burns, it generates a force driving backward. The equal but opposite force drives the car forwards. This activity will allow your kids to create a model using a balloon and a bottle as the car and explain how Newton’s third law applies to it.
