This is a picture of our finished project.

 

The design works by having a dual motor system with propellers attached, when the motors powered by 9V batteries start moving the gear attached to the motor moves another gear which is attached to a metal rod that allows for the propellers to spin, thus hopefully generating flight, in our case we could only move it around it was not strong enough to provide enough lift.

 

The energy exchanges include the chemical potential energy from the batteries which is converted into electrical energy that powers the motors, which then generates kinetic energy as the propellers start going to create lift and ultimately flight. We utilized switches to allow for easier control over our design.

 

Overall, the design was pretty successful for something we did with limited materials and not much time, we did a good job of showing off energy transfer as most of our system is outside of our cardboard chassis anyways, and we made numerous improvements to my designed prototype from the feedback from our peers, it definitely turned out way better than if we had no feedback at all.

 

There are many improvements that we could have made, and some may have allowed for flight. Stronger motors that could spin faster may have allowed for flight as we just lacked that last bit of speed from the propellers before they could lift. Higher-volt batteries may have helped but the propeller design could have been better too if we had the propeller towards the end of the helicopter a bit higher it may have been able to push more air down and create more lift, as this design basically threw away a bunch of kinetic energy that the propellers were creating.

 

Our creation process was also not the best, we essentially wasted one class period on making a single motor/propeller system, there were definitely better ways to manage our time and honestly, if we were to do it again knowing all this and planning a bit ahead, we could definitely make a helicopter that achieves flight. Material management was also a problem because we should have sought out all our materials first, we ended up having to find materials in the middle of building and testing and wasted time doing so.

 

My product’s impact on the environment was minimal. Most of our electrical circuits were made of recyclable plastic or metal, the batteries were rechargeable and our main body was designed with only glue and cardboard. Potential customers for my product would have to be careful of using batteries with overly high wattage and have to be careful to dispose of used batteries. This product is directed toward hobbyists and people from 6-18 who are interested in understanding flight and how it works.