The students in the SI group are a mixture of both 7th and 8th grade students. It is an Engineering SI group that the students volunteer to be in. We have a Junior Engineering Olympics competition in the spring that we will compete in. Throughout the year the students participate in different engineering projects (mini competitions) to see who will qualify to make the team for the spring. One of the competitions in the spring is a CO2 dragster car race. The students are given a block of wood and given specifications that their dragster must adhere to. They can do anything to the car as long as it stays within the specifications. First the students draw out their designs onto graph paper. The design is transferred onto the block of wood and their design is cut out and holes are drilled for the axles of their car. Students then sand down the rough edges of their car to give it a smooth finish and also to help reduce the mass of the car. For the competition we will paint the cars, but for this class competition we didn’t take the time to paint the cars. Wheels and axles are added and the students get to test run their cars to see if they want to make any modifications or changes to their cars. After the test run and final modifications we hold a competition where the students race against each other. They have to be able to calculate the speed of their car. We just completed our first round with modifications and currently our fastest car is traveling 45 feet in .654 seconds which is roughly around 47 miles per hour. Students will be given one more round of modifications before we have our final competition. The winner of the final competition will be the car that represents us in the spring competition.
