Team Number: 054
School Name: Moriarty High School
Area of Science: Physics
Project Title: Quarter-Mile Racing of Legal and Non-Legal Street Cars
Our project is based on racing cars in the most basic of street racing ways: the Quarter-Mile. The problem: who will win? We began by looking online at various websites and got the seventy fastest cars we could find. Then we gathered the top speed and the 0 to 100 KPH times of all the cars. We will use our program to determine who will win a race between any two of the cars using a complex formula involving distance, speed and acceleration times. We also have the 1/4 Mile stats on each car to check our answers against and make sure that the calculations are correct.
Plan to Solve the Problem Computationally
Using formulas to figure out speed (speed = distance/time) and acceleration (acceleration = (final speed - initial speed)/time), we will accurately calculate the quarter-mile times of each car then race the two cars the user chooses to race.
First, we had to make loops to let the user choose the car's they want, then take the two cars and figure out who would win.
Progress to Date
We have:
Finished gathering all statistics (0 to 100 KPH times, top speeds,
quarter-mile times, types of engines, years and models, etc.) on all
seventy cars, finished inputting those statistics in to an Excel chart,
gotten pictures of all of our cars and we have begun writing the program.
The program currently allows the user to choose the brand and car that
he or she wants to race. Next, we plan to put in the equations to figure
out who would win and make the program able to let the user select two
cars to race against eachother.
Expected Results
We hope to make the program be able to let the user choose any of our cars to race against eachother, whether they want to race 2 or 20. The program will give the user statistics on the cars they are looking at, and allow them to go back to the main menu if they don't want any of the cars in the brand they selected. This program will use several different equations to figure out which car would win, and by how much.
We expect that, while all of the newer cars will fair better, the Dodge Billy Harper Pro Viper will demolish it's opponents. We also expect that the Ford Model A will not beat anyone. Also, we expect that the Dodge Ram T-Rex 6X6 will turn some heads with its performance.
Team Members
Sponsoring Teacher
Project Mentor(s)