hydrogen cell
the hydrogen cell is a device that creates electricity through a chemical reaction. the hydrogen cell uses hydrogen and oxygen as its basic fuel to power anything electric. basically it separates the hydrogen from the oxygen and they both pass over electrodes and the hydrogen has a reaction with the catalyst causing an electrical current. we utilized water as our source of hydrogen and charged it with a solar panel to create the chemical reaction or charge it. once the hydrogen cell was charge we then connected it to the breadboard so we could get the electricity to the motor making it useful.
solar panel
A solar panel is a device that converts solar energy into electricity that we can use more effectively. one solar panel is created by several smaller solar individual cells. It does this by catching the rays of light most of the time produced by the sun and this creates an electrical current. we used the solar panel as a way to get an electrical current to the hydrogen cell so we could charge it. we found that the stronger the concentration of the light on the solar panel the more light it catches so the better it works. we used this to our advantage by tilting the light to match the angle of the solar panel and using the bigger and brighter lights.
series & parallel circuits
series circuits are a type of circuit where all components are connected end to end in a series. In a series there is only one single path for the current to flow through. In a parallel circuit both ends of the components are connected together and there are multiple paths for the current to flow through. For example a series circuit in everyday use is Christmas tree lights. Most of the time when one bulb goes out the whole string of lights does not light up. this is due to having only one path for the current to flow through so one bulb causes the current to be stopped. an example of a parallel circuit is an outlet because it has multiple pats for current to flow.
reflection
overall I really liked this project because it is always fun making cars and just doing hands on activity's in class and I liked that we got to use solar panels to power the cars because it is an inexhaustible source of energy that we will always have. I also liked having partners for this project. partners make it way easier because it is somebody to ask about ideas and its 3 different perspectives instead of one. My group consisted of Me, Kyle, and Patrick I thought the project went pretty smoopthly for my group even though are car didn't go as fast as we thought it would we still got it to work. The only thing I would have changed was getting our hydrogen cell powered faster in class because that slowed us down a little bit and took away some time we could have used for something else. also I would have gotten materials faster because all the good materials got taken in first period an by the first few people in my class.