Haven’t you ever thought about putting a model rocket engine in a toy car? Well, we did, and that is what we did our science fair on. To start off, we needed to buy two types of pinewood derby cars, a set of Lego’s, and two different sized PVC pipes. After we got all of our items, we started our test. For our test, we put a C-6 and a C-11 rocket engine in a pinewood derby car, and then we put a C-11 in a long PVC pipe and a C-6 in the Lego car. For our experiment, we had to customize all of the cars to be able to withstand the rocket engines. For example, for the pinewood derby cars, we first had to shave the wood into a aerodynamic shape, and put extra support in the axel so the axel would not fall off during takeoff. Then for the PVC pipe rocket cars, we had to drill holes in the pipe for the axel.

            The rocket cars we had used could have been better for the circumstances but they did seem to prove a point quite well. For the top speed the Lego car had the fastest speed of 32mph followed close behind by long PVC at 30 mph. As far as distance goes the long PVC had the furthest distance at 100 feet, it probably would have gone further if it had not hit the pole that the string was tied to too keep the rocket on the ground. For each of the rocket cars we tied a string to a rock at one end and to a pole at the other. We used a thin string, but the string often snapped when the cars took off. To help the problem we double the string, which made the string more durable.

           We had different results for every car we used. Not one launch was the same. We are sure that the different locations where we shot the engines at had effects on the cars. The launch sites were different by all the terrain and grade of the streets. The cars were also took a beating after every launch, which could have disfigured the car for the next launch. Multiple variables affected the cars. From the wheels to the weight. As long as the car could move on the wheels, we were able to launch the cars to get different results.