Pretty+Pretty+Princesses

Team Members: (First Names Only) Matthew __**Jennifer**__ Gabe **__Hope__** __**//Anna//**__

 March 30, 2010

 Today we are trying to figure out how to switch gears. Hope had an idea to to wind have two axels with two wheels, one set in low gear and one set in high gear. there will be a string wrapped around the one in low gear. As it spins it will be pulled up, leaving the car in high gear. This is just an experiment, but if it works we'll be REALLY happy:)

 We have given our car a long body with a slightly pointy front made out of a foam board. The pointy front is for good aerodynamics. Right now the bearing is a straw< but this could change. Our wheels are little plastic disks with a rubber ring on the outside. We have had a little bit of an argument in our group. Surprisingly the girls are going for speed and the guys are going for style. Originally we were working on different cars but after the guys decided to make theirs look like a drag racer, which had GREAT aerodynamics, we decided to combine our ideas. We are planning to bend soda cans on the front to give it a kind of cone shape with minimum air resistance, and cause it will look cool. So far we are using aluminum rods as our axels. Unfortunately our wheels are spinning backwards. Yay! Yours truly just had the idea to switch the positive and negative wires. Now at least we're moving in the right direction, tee hee hee. Sorry, tiered. Now Gabe is is pounding our gear against the table, not sure what he's trying to accomplish. Now our gear is stuck, Gabe is going to cut off his fingers, and Matthew is playing with a pair of giant pliers. Looks like our gear system is finally coming together. This is **SOOOOOOOOO ** not going to work!!!!

 -Anna 

 April 1, 2010

 Welcome back to the wonderful world of the pretty pretty princesses. We are having some issues as our gears are not catching, and are just spinning wildly, wasting our battery. So far I still see no sign that our gear-changng system will work. Now my team is saying that i'm being pessimistic, i'm not, i'm just realistic. We think we have figured out the problem with our gear system, apparently there is not enough weight on the gear, so now we are actually gluing stuff down. Before it was was just taped, but now we are gluing the motor clip, and the wheel bearing. 

-Anna

April 13, 2010

Hello, people who actually read this thing. We're back! So, right now everyone is gear talking, and we apparently need a smaller gear. Our goal for this week is to get our car to move of it's own power (in other words, actually get the batteries to move it). Right now, Gabe is getting dry hot glue tossed in his hair because he made Anna mad. Is any work actually getting done over there? Oh, yeah, I guess so. They're working on our magical "Gear Changing System", where we start out in low gear, and then the high gear swings down so it goes faster. Like Anna stated, I don't think this is going to work. I hope it does, though, 'cause that would be cool. And we might actually win. Though, I have no idea how it would work. We're using a rubber band to keep the high gear off the ground until we need it. I don't know how we switch them, but the boys seem to know what they're doing. Hope is saying the rubber band is going to get in the way of our car being able to run, so they're talking about what to do about that. Anna is running around taking pictures of everyone. She's defending her blogging methods now. Wow, we're a weird team.

-Jennifer

Same date, We have now completely and utterly killed our car base. Hoo-Rah. -Jennifer



April 16, 2010

Hello. Okay, we has revived our car base (By building a new one) and have given up on our Gear Changing idea. So now we are actually getting somewhere. We need to fix our wheels so the back ones don't slide side to side and mess with the direction of the car. Everyone is cutting soda cans to use as the top of our strange contraption called a race car. Everything's looking good. I think it's almost time for us to test it out. We have built the main base part with the motor attached to the gears attached to the axel attached to the wheels, so we can test it, we just have to make sure it'll work. We're going to test it now. Be right back. Wow, it actually ran. It curved to the right so we need to fix that, but after that we should be good. We switched the back wheels to try to fix the curve. Bigger wheels, more surface...blah blah blah. Any way, it'll help. Anna had an idea. To make the car lighter, Gabe is working on making a body completely out of soda cans. It might actually work. Okay, gotta go. G'bye. -Jennifer

April 29, 2010

Okay, yeah, hi. It's been a really long time since anyone bothered to blog, so I decided to do it even though this will be the third time. In. A. Row. Joy. anyway, Hope and Matthew are gone, and Anna and Gabe are working on a car each. Something tells me there will not be much progress today. Both cars are starting to come along, sort of, but I still think two cars is kind of a waste of energy. But, as usual, no one listens to me. Anna is sort of ripping our car apart, is that progressive? Well, since it's not totally destroyed, maybe it has some reason behind it. Gabe just spilled beads al over the floor because he was hammering the table too hard. Good job, Gabe. Well, at least he's taking responsibility and cleaning them up. Today doesn't seem like a talking day. Everyone is really quiet. It's kind of a nice change of pace. Me thinks it's about time to start cleaning up, so I'll say goodbye and hope the next time I blog, let's hope some other people have blogged (that means you, you slackers). Okay... bye. _ Jennifer 

May 5, 2010

So our car has been turning so much that we can't even test how fast its going. it will start out completely straight and then end up turning in a complete circle. We originally thought it was the back wheels but after trying forever to fix those we moved onto the front wheels. Then Gabe had the idea to switch the front wheels to something a little for sturdy than the thin plastic discs we have been using. Amazingly it goes straight, but sadly no where near as fast as it used to. So now we are trying to see if my idea, of taking the n]bands off of the plastic wheels and stretching them extremely far over the larger wheels we are using now, will work. Gabe is still working on the soda can car (which was my wonderful idea). We were having some trouble with how to get the axles in, but we fixed it by putting a straw through the two parallel holes and sticking the axle through that. Back to the other car we are working on. We have just reattached the front wheels after putting the bands on them, and we are cutting down the sides a little bit cause the wheels are bumping it. The front is bending up a little bit and we are thinking of putting something like the steel rod we have on back, to keep it from bending, on the front. Blah! So we just tested it again and not only is it turning again, but its going incredibly slow for about a foot and then stopping. The speed and stopping is most likely just from the lack of traction. I think were about to give up on this one. Our only problem is that the wheels on our can car are the same as the wheels on our normal car. Also the gears aren't catching on our can car. So now our gears are catching but there's no traction. ON our normal car we took off the bands we were using and put on regular rubber bands. It's going at a reasonable speed now, but it's still turning. We are trying to give our can car's wheels more traction. Now our can car is kind of going but its really turning. We need to figure out what's making all our cars turn. The good thing is that our can car"s wheels are spinning really fast when they're off the ground. Well I'm gonna focus on helping now.

-Anna