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Hello all. Welcome to the 13th of our Gifted World challenge series.
This week's challenge is related to a masterclass that just happened on understanding flows of energy on Earth. You can see the details of the masterclass here
The answers to challenge #12 are also discussed below
Challenge #13 - Being efficient in my electric car
I recently bought an electric car. It has a big battery that provides power to the motor that turns the wheels. It also does a really cool thing called Regenerative Braking.
Regenerative Braking in an electric car is like a magic trick where the car saves energy every time that it has to slow down! 🚗✨ In a normal car (or bicycle), pressing the brake causes brake pads to push on the wheel, and that friction slows down the car. The energy from the motion of the car gets wasted as heat. In regenerative braking, instead of pushing brake pads on the wheel, the car’s motor just works in reverse. Instead of using electrical energy to turn the wheels, it uses the turning of the wheels to generate electrical energy, thus charging the battery. This turns the car’s wheels into little energy makers, sending electricity back to the battery. 🔋⚡
One day, I was driving back to my home which is in the north of Bengaluru. I was coming from far away in the south of the city, and instead of driving through the city, I decided to take a highway around the city. I had just enough charge in my battery to make the journey. However, when I was just 70% of the way there, my battery ran out of charge, and I was stranded on the side of the road.
I called a tow truck and they came and picked me up. The tow truck driver told me that I should have gone through the city, instead of taking the highway. He said that because driving through the city involves a lot of stopping and starting, regenerative braking would have charged the battery, and I would have gotten home.
Now this statement made me think for a while. And that's why I am asking you this question.
Given what you know about electric cars and regenerative braking, answer the questions on the google form linked below
Post your answer in the form embedded below, or directly on this link - https://forms.gle/oM3dAgjqhxLpr94cA
Last day to submit answers is Sunday, 15 December. The 3 best answers (as judged by the Gifted World team) will be posted on our blog Looking forward to your answers
Post your answer here - https://forms.gle/oM3dAgjqhxLpr94cA
This challenge has been given by Siddharth Bharath.
If you enjoyed thinking through this, check out our Connecting the Dots course series that is happening this Winter! We have courses on Science, Computational Thinking, Physics, Generative AI etc. for students in grades 4 - 9.
Answers to Challenge #12
Challenge #12 involved several questions designed to test conceptual thinking. All of those were discussed in a workshop lead by Vishnu Agnihotri on "How to Become a Conceptual Learner". A total of 45 students responded to the challenge. You can see the video of the workshop and discussion of the answers here - https://youtu.be/PwJWUDLQ-JI
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