Calling All Land Sailors to HILST

Science Engineering Project - Fall 2000

Hopkins Junior High has decided to put together a Land Sailing Team. the science department will have a competition to see which students will design the best land sailing vehicle and be part of the Hopkins International Land Sailing Team (HILST).  A land sailing vehicle uses ONLY wind to propel itself across the ground.

Buildint Your Vehicle

In a team of 2-3 people of your choice, you will build a prototype land sailing vehicle. It should ahve parts which can be removed so that it can fit into a trailer and hauled out to a windy location for races. All the parts for your prototype must fit in a box which is at maximum 35 cm by 20 cm by 15 cm including the lid (many shoe boxes will work). The entire contents of the box AND the box must have a mass no more than 600 grams, as it needs to be pulled from site to site. You will need to be able to assemble it within 3 minutes after you empty the box. NO kit parts of manufactured parts may be used, EXCEPT, if you use wheels and axles, they can be from a kit or manufactured. You may have adults advisors who may help you with ideas, but no adults are allowed to construct any part of the vehicle.

The Competition

Using box fans for propulsion, your vehicle will go through a series of tests.

1. Your land sailing vehicle will first have to cover a distance of 3 meters long and stay within a pathway of 2 meters wide.

2. If your vehicle can successfully complete this task, the next task is to cover the 3 meter distance within a 1 meter wide path.

3. The last test will be to cover the 3 meters in a 0.5 meter width.

4. Those vehicles that have successfully completed the first three steps will race against each other until the fastest vehicle for each period can be determined.

JOURNAL

Each team member must keep a journal which includes all meetings and plans of your vehicle. This journal must be hand written and include drawings of your ideas- from the first to the final. The journal must be written in each time the team meets or when the vehicle is worked on. Each team member will explain why changes and improvements were made. You will also report how your vehicle performed in the competition and what you learned from the competition. Any team member who does not have the same teacher as you will have to make copies of his or her journal for the other teacher.

WRITTEN COMPONENT

1. Find out the history of land sailing. You should start with the attempts of wind wagons in the 1800's and continue the development of the sport until the present.

2. Research the most recent information on land sailing designs and speeds. find out the extremes of the sport (speed, distance traveled, weight of vehicles).

3. What kind of environments do land sailing races occur on? Is it a safe sport for those environments?

Due Dates

Prototypes will be due Tuesday, December 5, 2000. You may pre-test your vehicles according to your teacher's directions. Journals and the written component will be due Monday, December 11. Individual teachers may have other guidelines that they may use.