Basic Information

Vehicle/Team Name: QuickCats

School Name: John F. Kennedy Middle School 

Kylie J., Madison W., Nathan P.

All 8’th Grade

Roles: Kylie: Designer/Builder | Madison: Designer/Builder | Nathan: Builder and Web Page Designer

Our main goal: The car will pull, not push.

About our Solar Car

The KMS Quick Cats Solar Car is designed and engineered to be both fast and light. For the chassis of the car, we went with light, but sturdy black foam. For the wheels, we have two small wheels in the front and one big thin wheel in the back directly connected to the motor. We designed it this way to ensure that we have maximum power and no power lost going into the wheel, therefore giving the car maximum speed. For the movement standpoint of things, our team decided to have the car pull, not push, to ensure maximum speed and performance. 

Journal

On first 3 Days of Robotics Club, we spent all of our time in Club and 4’th Period to design and test our Solar Car

On Day 1 (1/26/24) of Robotics Club, we tested our first prototype, and when we got it to work, it worked perfectly

Prototype #1

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On to Prototype #2

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On Day 2 (2/2/24) of Robotics Club, we designed a new chassis for our Solar Car

The new chassis is smaller, lighter and thinner than Prototype 1

On Day 3 (2/9/24) of Robotics Club, we got our new chassis, so then we put all the parts on the chassis, and then we tested it out and it went really fast, faster then our first prototype

Prototype #2

While testing the new prototype, the motor would stop working at times even though the battery would be plugged in, but we would always get it to work

On Day 4 (2/16/24) of Robotics Club, we adjusted the front axles so that the gear is hitting the motor. Unfortunately that didn’t work, but Fortunately we got our new axles (Which are longer), so we stripped our solar car down to the chassis and we started putting everything on, including the new axles

On Day 6 (3/1/24) of Robotics Club (Was no Solar Car the Friday Prior) we tried once again to get our Solar Car to move on the ground, but then we noticed that whenever we had the Solar Panel connected to the motor and when we would pick it up, the wheels would automatically start moving. So we changed out the 2 of the front wheels with bigger wheels, which we hoped that it would work, but it didn’t 

On Day 7 (3/8/24), we had to start super gluing stuff onto the new chassis, so we started taking off all the hot glue and started to fix and found some errors, like hot glue stuck in the axel-holder holes. This time, we replaced the small gear for an even smaller gear, raised the axle (With new axle mounts) with the small gear and we are using even bigger wheels that are 3d printed with Flexible filament. 

Prototype #3

During the school days in Fourth Period (Lunch Period), our Teacher Mr. Hill gave us an idea were we put direct power to a wheel so that no motor power is lost. So, we got to work on a design

On Day 9 of Robotics Club (3/22/24), We worked on securing the stoppers, changing the wheels (They were to  wiggling) and making the side walls tall enough to put the solar panel on without interfering with the wheel.

Final Car Build