My kid has this toy car and it doesn’t take batteries, it just takes a small push and can go really far and take a lot of obstacles. Inside there are a bunch of gears that seem to propel the car, but in terms of conservation of momentum and energy, I don’t get how it can go so well. how this works? (I do have a 5 yo but she doesn’t care as much as I do about getting a correct answer.)
In: Engineering
[removed]
When you push the car, most of the energy gets stored in a spring – changed into potential energy.
When you release the car, it’s propelled by that energy.
It’s the same thing as winding up a (non-digital) watch – but you’re “winding it up” by pushing it.
Inertia. There is a flywheel that is big and heavy and has a very small gear inside in comparison to others. This flywheel stores the energy and with the torque multiplication of the gears is able to push the car.
It’s actually quite smart. I love tinkering with toys since I was 5 yrs old. These little machines are highly creative and they put them in a lot of things not just toys.
The same principle applies to engines in cars specially manual cars. Big heavy flywheels for almost the same purpose. Hmmmmm
Is it a Darda Car? I got a few of them in France in the 80s when I was a kid. They have a tiny barrel with a spring and gearing inside.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darda_(toy)
It has a flywheel. When you turn the wheels it turns gears which turn the fly wheel. If you can see inside it’s a metal disc, and the toy car is probably a bit on the heavy side for its size. Once that flywheel is spun up it takes a while to slow down completely and since it’s heavy enough it has more than enough stored energy to overcome the weight of the car when placed down and send it forward. If the same disc was made of paper it would just stop the moment you put the car down.
Latest Answers