When we hear the world collision the first thing we think is crash. In scientific words collision occurs when more than two objects collide against each other as a result, the born of many physics forces like momentum, impulse, inertia and friction. But what is the relationship between collision and a car crash? What we may not notice is that physics is all around us in our life and every life event involves its. The path we take every morning in our way to school, the traveling of the car is a very good example.
Studies prove and affirm that the survivors of severe car crashes, survive thanks to the way of protection they used and how is the car designed with specific and special safety precautions. That was our main point we wanted to achieve while making our car for the project. Our design was basically a truck like a jeep. It was all made up of carboard, wood and other small details that beenfit the truck to make it heavier, more rough and hard. It was also covered with newspaper, as a result, giving the car a very hard texture. The passengers seat, was made up all of soft materials like cotton, pads and sponges. The egg was attached with two rubber strings, simulating a safety seat bealt and helping as a support for the egg. All this details and spefcific design had a main goal and something specific to achieve: preventing the egg from breaking and keep it secure in its seat.
The demostration of collision and all its forces acting against in this experiment consisted on giving car some random force and distance using a rubber spring, pushing it and throwing it against the wall so the collision can occur. We did the same procedure three times and our results went great! Our egg passenger survived and stayed intact, no damage was caused at all during the test of the car. Unlinke my other classmates cars, many suffer damage and the loss of the passenger. After their cars collided with the wall, their results where awful, some cars where destroyed, others egg was broke and even some of them didn’t roll correctly on the floor.
Why did our car worked in a proper way, but some of my classmates work didn’t went as good as expected? For the design of our project we used one of the most hard materials besides wood: hard carboard. Hard carboard is very different from normal carboard paper, it is a harder material and the newspaper helped a lot to make it more solid. One of the thinks we also wanted to accomplish was the weight of the car. If the car’s weight is weak there are more chances that the car will fly in the air because of the gravity and air ressistance, also it will help to get less velocity when beeing thrown and the impact would be less and not so hard. We considered that the front part of the car its the most important and it was the main part in which we focus when creating or car. In the videos shown in class we observed and learned that the more far the passenger if from the event of the impact, the less chances to get an injury when the crash occurs thats why we added a sponge, cotton and pads so in the time of the impact the car would rebound with the wall and last but not least in the side of the car we also added a great amount of sponge and cotton for protection, just like cars in real life we tried to simulate that they where real life air bags.
What I observed that my classmates did incorrect was that they didn’t put enough atention to the distance and place that their egg was placed in the car that means that the front part of their car was so short and they had more chances that their egg could not survive the collision. Also the materials they used was very important, cardboard is a very good material and very accesible to use, the only problem is that hard cardboard is better and stronger to protect the car and other objects. Our wheels where made up of wood and rolled perfectly in the floor. The simulation of the seatbealt and airbags worked up perfectly and like we expect it to do.
Collision and car crashes have a lot of things in common, Newton’s law of inertia is used in collisions and car crashes, letting us know and showing us that everything that collides changes inmediatly the direction and speed. Seat belts and airbags take a huge role in collitions, they are the main and only thing that can prevent damage or injury because their main point of their forces is to act towards the passenger and make it rebound and prevent serious things.