Fukineh
December 7th, 2002, 02:49 AM
I have finally completed my entirely Edible Rocket Car which some friends and I took to the Calgary Science Olympics and used in an edible gravity racer competition. Unfortunately, It did not win against some of the gravity powered cars because our ultra-light fragile frame broke while hitting the bottom of the ramp (like many other people’s cars did also). Had the ramp been a curve like we thought it was supposed to be instead of straight, we would have won for both speed and distance because we where the only people who had a car utilizing power other than gravity. We won an award for ingenious edible car design, however.
The good points: the car does propel itself on the flat, and the engines which where very tricky to perfect work at least 70% of the time (I believe this is good for entirely edible engines).
Our car utilized a spaghetti frame held together with ju-jubes,and Oreo wheels. Our engine mixture is 6/4 sucrose to KNO3 (Yes KNO3 is edible, it's and an-aphrodisiac, a "laxitive" and a preservative, as well as other things), and the engines are contained inside large noodles with about 1-1.5 '' diameter. The nozzles are penne noodles, and they are held in and the back of the engine is capped with a cement made from sugar, salt, and flower (We had to melt it with sugar because when we tried just wet salt and flower it cracked the noodle casings while drying).
To light the engines 50/50 sucrose to KNO3 powder was poured down the nozzles and lit with a jet lighter. When the engine has ignition, the car is let down the ramp. Of course we had no success with the ramps at the Science Olympics, but we had success at home. I was pleased that although we had some engines that wouldn't ignite properly, not a single one exploded it's noodle casing.
When my fiend and I finish our web site additional info, pictures, and movies should be available.
<small>[ December 07, 2002, 01:54 AM: Message edited by: Fukineh ]</small>
The good points: the car does propel itself on the flat, and the engines which where very tricky to perfect work at least 70% of the time (I believe this is good for entirely edible engines).
Our car utilized a spaghetti frame held together with ju-jubes,and Oreo wheels. Our engine mixture is 6/4 sucrose to KNO3 (Yes KNO3 is edible, it's and an-aphrodisiac, a "laxitive" and a preservative, as well as other things), and the engines are contained inside large noodles with about 1-1.5 '' diameter. The nozzles are penne noodles, and they are held in and the back of the engine is capped with a cement made from sugar, salt, and flower (We had to melt it with sugar because when we tried just wet salt and flower it cracked the noodle casings while drying).
To light the engines 50/50 sucrose to KNO3 powder was poured down the nozzles and lit with a jet lighter. When the engine has ignition, the car is let down the ramp. Of course we had no success with the ramps at the Science Olympics, but we had success at home. I was pleased that although we had some engines that wouldn't ignite properly, not a single one exploded it's noodle casing.
When my fiend and I finish our web site additional info, pictures, and movies should be available.
<small>[ December 07, 2002, 01:54 AM: Message edited by: Fukineh ]</small>