The car is constructed out of ¼” clear acrylic I designed on a computer and then we cut on a laser-cutter (like an Inkjet printer, but with a 40mW IR laser instead of an ink cartridge) and then glued together. My roommate programmed a micro-controller (computer-on-a-chip) to read an airbag accelerometer and light up super-bright LED’s according to how severe the ‘crash’ is. There are silhouettes of people on the inside that have the LED’s embedded.
Theoretically it’d be part of an exhibit at a science museum. The activity is filling a bag (not shown) that velcros to the front of the car, to try and reduce the severity of the crash (can’t be too soft or it won’t have stop the car and can’t be too fully stuffed or the car will just bounce back). The target audience is 8-12 y.o.’s. We have tested it with high-school age kids as well as 4th graders and they were all very excited about it and almost had to be dragged away, actually.
Theoretically it’d be part of an exhibit at a science museum. The activity is filling a bag (not shown) that velcros to the front of the car, to try and reduce the severity of the crash (can’t be too soft or it won’t have stop the car and can’t be too fully stuffed or the car will just bounce back). The target audience is 8-12 y.o.’s. We have tested it with high-school age kids as well as 4th graders and they were all very excited about it and almost had to be dragged away, actually.
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