Our team built the aluminum-air battery-powered car as the student project for an intro to chemical engineering class, 10.000, where student learn about the mechanical, electrical, and chemical processes that go into building a car. We wanted to incorporate as many timed and electrochemical processes as we could into the project, so we used an iodine clock reaction to cause the car to reach a halt once it was past a certain time interval.
The car is powered by four batteries in series providing power to the back motors. The two-wheel drive is additionally controlled via a Teensy 3.2, which uses a voltage-divider to receive input from a photo resistor about the state of the iodine clock reaction and outputs a signal to the motors to run until the reaction has reached completion.
We also laser cut parts of the chassis and used foam and various spacers to allow all of the components to fit on a single chassis.
The reagent percentages control the time it takes for the car to run.
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