How do you make a newtons scooter?

Question

For science i need to make a newtons scooter, ill put the rulles up
Must… Cannot…
Move forward by pushing back on something. Use electricity, balloons, gravity, or fluids.
Start on the floor. Rise of the ground more than a foot.
Have its propulsion device attached to the car. Be pushed to start.
Start by a simple release of the hand. Use a human or animal force.
Follow all the safety guideline discussed at the beginning of the year. Be a sling shoot.


there u go plleeeez help

Answer 1

Cotton reel, elastic band, a couple of matchsticks (dead). Pass band through reel with one stick in either end . Make one stick shorter that diameter of reel and ensure the other is longer. wind up longer stick holding to shorter one so is tight. Put on floor and as band unwinds the longer stick is in contact with floor and pushes it along.

Answer 2

Make a flatbed scooter (e.g., from an Erector set) with four wheels. Attach a ramp made of two railings on top. The ramp should be as high as you can make it without making the cart astable and easily upended. That follows because PE = mgh; where potential energy is proportional to the height h.

Place as massive (M) a ball as you can find and that can roll down the ramp along the two railings. The ball has PE = Mgh potential energy at the top of the ramp, before release. Let the ball roll freely down the ramp and onto the floor. The ramp's incline should flatten out at the back of the scooter so as to generate a maxium horizontal velocity vx for the ball. As the ball scoots off the scooter (pun intended), its potential energy is all kinetic energy KE.

As the ball scoots off the cart/ramp, the cart will move forward (in the x direction) because mVx = Mvx; where m is the cart's mass with velocity Vx and M is the very massive ball's mass M rolling off with horizontal velocity vx. This comes from the conservation of momentum.

For Vx = (M/m) vx; the key to a fast cart velocity Vx along the floor is to make sure the rolling ball M >>>> m the mass of the cart. Also, the greater you can make vx by flattening out the ramp's incline just before the ball leaves the scooter, the greater Vx will be.

I think this meets your criteria. M pushes m; the scooter's on the floor, the ball/ramp is attached, the ball is released by hand; this is about as safe as it gets, unless you get run over by the ball of mass M.