Speedy Eagle

Event Year: 2021
Event Location: Virtual
Competition: Junior Solar Sprint
Division: 3-5
School: Sally Ride Elementary
Team Size: 2

Hello! I am Sasha and I’m Neil. We are 4th-grade gifted students at Sally Ride Elementary. We are very excited to participate in this competition. This is our first time competing in this specific competition and we are learning a lot of skills from this like engineering and construction.

  • Solar car name: Speedy Eagle
  • School name: Sally Ride Elementary school
  • Team member: Sasha and Neil
  • Sasha and Neil: 4th Grade

About our car

Speedy Eagle

  • The car is 228 grams
  • It is 10 1/2 inches long
  • The highest part of the car is 3 1/4 inches in height
  • The car ran 20 meters in 9 seconds. It means 7.3 feet per second or 8 kph (Kilometers per hour) or 5 miles per hour. Not bad at all!!!!

Materials

  • Materials I used to make my car:
  • Balsa Wood
  • Blue Duct Tape
  • Wheels
  • Motor
  • Gears
  • Hot glue
  • A Straw
  • Solar panel
  • A hard piece of wood my dad helped me break into two pieces
  • Battery holder ( Just in case for the day we go to the competition if it’s not sunny we could use batteries)
  • Connecter wires to the motor and solar panel

The Problem

Our car was turning out really nicely but there was a problem that came our way. We are never satisfied with anything and want to make something look better. We kept sanding the base wood for the car, more and more. We couldn’t stop ourselves. It got to the point where the middle part of the car was awfully thin so we had to start again. The first try was not good. Our car ran fast but in a big circle! We had to line up the weels and then everything worked great!

It took 9 seconds to reach the 20 meters!

Our car is a Speedy Eagle!!!!

This project and its content has been approved by Ms. Berriz

11 thoughts on “Speedy Eagle

  • I enjoyed reading about how you sanded yourself into a problem. I am exactly like that–I just keep messing with something I’m building! In the end though you ended up with a car that ran pretty fast. Good job!

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  • great job I love the backround color on the paragraphs

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  • I like the car body design and the fact that you used materials on hand. I too would have enjoyed a video of the car going in circles! That must have been a surprise! Glad to see it all worked out and your car had an excellent run in the sun. Congratulations and good luck!

    Reply
  • Hello, we are Sasha and Neil, and we want to say thank you for your comment. It was our first time making a solar car, but it was fun and we enjoyed the experience!

    Reply
  • Great team work Sasha and Neil! You never gave up in making the Speedy Eagle the best solar car possible. Way to go!

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    • Hello we are Sasha and Neil, and we wanted to say thank you for your comment. We enjoyed it, and this won’t be the last time we will do a project like this!

      Reply
  • Amazing!!!! Great problem/decision making skills. To reach 9 20 meters in 9 seconds in pretty good!

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    • Hello, we’re Neil and Sasha. Thank you for your thoughtful comment. We enjoyed making the solar car, it was the first time we did something like this, but out of all we really enjoyed it!

      Reply
  • Great project! Your solar car turned out great in the end. I was curious to see the trial where the car went in a circle and understand more about how you fixed that problem. I think that the ability to overcome problems that come our way is an important part of being a scientist/engineer. I also understand your goal to have perfection, trying to get the car just the right shape (your car had an interesting, shape, too). Thank you for sharing your interesting project, great job!

    Reply
    • Hi, we are Sasha and Neil, and we wanted to say thank you for your generous comment. It was our first time making a solar car, and we had some problems, but most of it we enjoyed doing!

      Reply
    • Hi, we are Neil and Sasha, and we wanted to thank you for your generous comment! We had some trouble with the solar car, but eventually we were able to make it work. We had a lot of fun making the solar car.

      Reply

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