Angela Hui's Newton Scooter

Closeup with Action/Reaction Arrows and Labeling

Photo of Newton Scooter with Track

I faced many challenges when building and designing my Newton Scooter. My first few designs (powered by baking soda and vinegar, Coca Cola and Mentos, or rubber band catapult) did not follow the guidelines, so they could not be used. Then, I tried to use a balloon-powered design, but the car was too massive and had too much inertia to be accelerated by a small balloon, or even two small balloons. I tried to lighten the Newton Scooter, but my wheels were poorly crafted and prevented motion. I overcame these challenges by seeing Nicki’s simple yet effective design and emulating it. Now I still have a balloon-powered Newton Scooter, but it is mostly balloon (see images). I would still like to fix my improved Newton Scooter by making it lighter, perhaps by shortening the straw, which seems to be its heaviest part. Maybe I could make it more aerodynamic as well, but I am not sure how to do so without adding too much mass. My favorite part of my Newton Scooter is its simplicity and effectiveness. Before, my designs were more complicated, but they did not work very well at all. In this project I learned to Keep It Simple for Success. Newton’s third law of motion says that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. When I relinquished my grip on the end of the balloon, air escaped, exerting a force (action) away from the balloon. This force’s “equal and opposite” partner (reaction) exerted a force towards the balloon. This caused the Newton Scooter to move. [These forces are represented in the first photograph by the two red arrows.]  Newton’s first law of motion says that an object in motion tends to stay in motion and an object at rest tends to stay at rest unless an unbalanced force acts on it. My Newton Scooter was at rest until an unbalanced force, the escaping air and its equal and opposite reaction caused it to accelerate forward. My Newton Scooter stayed in motion until an unbalanced force, my hand at the end of the track, stopped it.


Note: I only have one video because this attempt was the first one I deemed good enough to record. The other attempts were never formally tested, so they were not recorded.

By Angela Hui