27 May 2008:  Today in class we didn’t do much because my other partners did not bring the materials, we needed to start and create the solar panel car. We decided how would the wheels be placed in the car and got a conclusion that will perfectly move and be as fast as possible. To do this, we will put a hole in between the wood so it moves smoothly.

29 May 2008:  Today everyone in my group brought the materials because needed to start working on our solar panel car. We cut the front part of the wooden car. To be honest, it was complicated to cut the wood with the exact measurements, as the wood is really thick. Tommorow, Olivia will bring the sand paper to smooth out the edges.

30 May 2008:  Today I went to my brother’s COFO presentation from 9:15 –9:45. There I saw their wonderful project: The problem and solutions of what they were working on. When I came back from the presentation, I helped my group cut the wood. This weekend Olivia is going to bring the second wood cut and ready so we don’t waist more time.

2 June 2008: Today we were supposed to cut the wings and paste the entire car together, but Olivia didn’t bring the second wood cut.  This is why we could not succeed with what we had planned for today and now we are behind. Tomorrow, when all the pieces of wood are cut, we are going to paste the car together so we can paint it.

3 June 2008: Today we finished cutting the wood as we had planned. We pasted the entire car together so we could start painting it, which we did at the end of the class.

On Thursday we will finish painting and start placing the wheels to the car so on Monday we can test it.

5 June 2008:  Today we continued painting the car as the glue had already dried up. We finished it and did a model, which planned how the wheels were going to be placed and glued to the car. Tomorrow we will paste the wheels to the car and on Monday we will try it. As their are few days left before the project is due, we should start raping things up so we can be able to go to Chosica and race the other cars of the class.

6 June 2008:  Today we work on pasting the wheels to the car, but to be sincere, we encountered numerous problems through out the process, as the wheels didn’t stay on the correct place.

We are taking the car home this weakened to work on it and make it look nice and work as best as possible. On Monday we will adjust all the things needed so we can be able to test and see if it works on Tuesday.

9 June 2008:  Today we notice that the wheels were uneven and had to start all again with foam instead of wood. We cut them even and pasted them with black tape to the car. Tomorrow we will paste the motor to the wheels because Ms. Lemley took it and we weren’t able to paste it today. We will also test it and see if it works.

10 June 2008:  Today we finished placing the wheels and testing the gear to see if it worked accurately. As the black tape got lost, we had to use glue to see if it worked. However, the glue didn’t stay in place and didn’t dry up, which is why we weren’t able to progress with our work. On Thursday we will start by testing the car with a battery so we can be able to go to Chosica and race the other cars.

12 June 2008:  Today we had a lot of problems because the wheels, the gear and the motor were loose. Because of this, we had to test the car twice and in each test, we found a new problem. We finally reached our goal by making it work at last. We will test the car once again tomorrow.

13 June 2008:  Today we tested the car for the third time and it didn’t work because the gear had moved again. We decided to use a bottle cap and make a hole in the middle rather than using foam in the wheel that carries the gear.  The cap’s hole holds the wheel much better due to the fact that it was a hard material.

During the last minutes of the class, we were able to finally finish the car but we had a new problem: the battery. Because of this, we are going to test it for the last time to see if it was working.

16 June 2008:  Today we eventually finished testing the car for the last time to make sure if it was well enough to race the other cars. The only problem we had is that the cables of the motor were touching the wheels and slowing it down. We pasted the cables to the bottom part of the car and left the other part in the top of the wooden car. After that, we went to the Tech Lab and started working on the web-page as we were ready to go to Chosica.

Reflection

It didn’t work; our car didn’t reach the end line!

We got to Chosica and arrived to the racing court. We were the first ones to begin the race and when the car started moving, a leaf stopped it when it was about 1/3 of the way to the end line. That is when the gear and the motor moved the wheels and the car failed. We did our best to try and fix it, but the car was already ruined. The pressure of the car made the gear and the motor bounce, which made the car stop and didn’t’ t move. As you can see we tried our best by inserting and adjusting more electric tape, which did no good, rather than moving every thing out of place. Before starting the race each group predicted on the result of the race, but our prediction was not as we expected.