#12 Car Down Tube
Another entry from Bourneville School in Birmingham, this design shows a rather cleverly invented car with a weight on the front.
Johana’s design shows a car with a special beater, a bit like a digger used to make roads. The car runs across a bridge and along a track to play the note. When we were thinking about how to make this work, we had to answer three questions: How should we keep the car on the track? how could we start the car moving, with enough energy to get to the piano? How could we make sure the car came back to the player after playing the note? To solve the first question, we thought about a roller-coaster, where the cars have wheels above and below the rails to make sure the car can’t fall off. To get the car moving, we’ve designed a sliding lever at the bridge: as the player pushes the yellow pendulum, the lever moves very rapidly, and the car should fly forwards. And to try to store enough energy for the car to return to the player, we’ve added a big spring to the beater, which will allow the car to bounce off the piano and return. We hope the spring’s powerful enough!
