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
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.
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