Car Design Project - Ideas to Beat Other Cars in Races

[bigmama]

Hello everyone,

I am taking physics this year, and our first big project is to design a car that will throw the other cars off the racetrack. (seen below)

http://img509.imageshack.us/img509/5526/carsketchzu4.jpg

We have the basic car, but now we have to modify it to beat all the other cars.



We have a few ideas:

1. Attach a spatula to the end of the car that flips the other car underneath after x amount of time. (This seems the coolest, but also the hardest..is it even possible!?)

2. Take off all but the bare essentials and load it up with weights. This will make it low to the ground and hard to knock off.

3. Take off the wheels and most of the frame. It sounds weird, but we are pushing the car forward along the track, so it would still move forward. It most likely would never come off the race track..

4. Attach magnets to the bottom of the car so that it is attracted to the track and doesn't come off as easily.


...any other ideas? Are these plausible, or just stupid?

Thanks a ton in advance for all your help, and I hope to be a contributing member of this forum!

-Connor

 

[wolram]

Put a heay flywheel in your car and use a low slung (blade) designed to get under the wheels of the other cars.

 

[AppleBite]

Good idea about the magnet (if the track is suitable for that of course).

Just to help you out, what kind of track is it? Length? Elevation?
A steep front of the car starting all the way from just above the track could be a solution to literary make the other car jump out of your way. Forgive the pun;P

 

[peterblais]

magnets could work, depending what the track is made out of... Pack a lot of force punch for the weight, compared to just loading the car up with ballast.

I like the flywheel idea, that is a very simple way to store up a huge amount of energy which you can then unleash on your enemies without making a really complicated system mechanically.

Nice Porsche 959 model!

http://www.sport-cars.org/site_img/large/porsche-959-9.jpg

That one's not a model though. ;)