Mentor Hours 5

Today I went back to the workshop and finished making the balloon-powered race car. There was one more piece that required glue that I was unable to put together yesterday so I had to spend time waiting for the glue to dry. Eventually I was able to put all of the pieces together and create my race car:

The main difficulty I had was making the hole for the balloon tube the correct size. First it was too small, then too big, and just plain difficult. Afterwards, the wheels became a huge issue. The wheels that were included are only made out of thick, index card-like paper so they're very thin and not very stable. The natural wobbling motion that the wheels did constantly caused the car to slow down a lot. I spent a majority of my time tinkering with the car to try and get it to roll straight and farther. Once I had done all I could think to do, the car still only went about 5 or 6 feet, but I considered it a success because my first run only went about 3 feet. Plus, watching my car roll for just a little bit was pretty cool knowing that I had made it from almost scratch.

I think my mentor gave me these puzzle solving kits to get me to think harder and in different ways. The kits definitely did their job and forced me to think. Both projects seemed simple conceptually, but once I got started things got complicated quickly. I think these kits were a nice way to get me started. Next visit, my mentor is going to get me started on projects that now involve real electronic parts or some experiments with the Snap Circuits.

Hours Earned: 2 hours

Total Hours: 11 hours