Blog Post #3

  Over the Holiday break, I had a chance to speak with a Tesla Employee, and he had a few tips that were extremely crucial in my end goal. One of Tesla's new models is a fully electric car with advanced technology. Its body is made of aluminum because it is light weight but also durable. Only the rear and front bumpers are made of plastic for cheap repairs. And 2 motors for both efficiency but it also charges the battery with both motors. It uses a Lithium Ion battery for both being cheap but good quality and long lasting battery life. The frame of the car is also built with aluminium. But enough about the car, the employee gave me a few good tips for building an efficient car. A car needs a lot of balancing, in everything. For example, the tires need more thickness for grip, but the thinner it is the less friction it takes to move. So it would need a good balance to have both grip on the road to not lose control, but still reduce friction to not use as much gas. With weight, the car has to be balanced with weight, if not on a sharp turn, the car may loose balance and tip over. So I will keep in balance when creating my 3-D model car. Thanks for reading this blog.

Post #2: Fuel Efficiency

       As a part of my goal, I wanted to learn more about fuel efficiency, what factors contribute to good fuel economy, and why does it happen? And I have done research and found, there are multiple key factors involved with fuel efficiency.
     
      The first factor is displacement, Displacement is the volume of air your engine consumes in a single revolution. It is usually measured in litres. The more air your engine moves, the more fuel it consumes. So less Displacement is more fuel efficient. For example, a Yaris has a 4 cylinder 1.5L engine. The 1.5L is the amount of air the engine intakes for each revolution.
      Another key factor is an obvious one, weight makes your engine work harder than usual, and more work for your engine won't be better for your wallet. A smaller sized vehicle won't move the scales that much, but some SUV's and trucks weigh a good 5,000lbs. Basically the heavier a vehicle is, the more power it needs, which means a bigger engine. If the engine doesn't work well with the weight of the vehicle, then it won't save gas as well.
      Those are just 2 of the factors, but there are much more such as: Gearing, Aerodynamics, and etc. But the other factors could be posted up sometime later. Just to keep this post short. I hope you keep reading these blog posts.

Introduction: 1st Blog of November.

   
  My main topic for Genius hour this year is cars.  I thought it would be a cool topic, and I always liked them, I just didn't know much about them. So I decided to make it my focus for this Genius Hour project. Cars are our way of transportation, and without them we would be set behind so far, and still ride horses in 2015. Image that... My main goal for this Genius hour project is to make a model car. Hopefully working. And I have many other blogs to come to keep you updated on where I am at, what I will do next, and what I have learned about my topic.