20 Time Reflection

20 Time Reflection

In this 20 Time unit, we wanted to explore our passion for cars. Not just cars in general, but specifically engines. Before this unit, I only had a vague understanding on how engines worked. All I knew was you fill it with gas, the engine can hold a certain number of liters of fuel, and there are different numbers of pistons. I decided to team up with jacob to go on a research journey to figure out how an engine works. We looked extensively at engine specifications, designs, and sizes (displacement) to completely understand how an engine works, and what main factors affect the engine. We later found a shocking new trend from car manufactures. Car companies such as Ford are producing smaller engines with turbochargers. We looked further into how car manufacturers are using 2 small turbochargers to boost the engine. Before I continue, let me define some terms:

Piston- A cylinder in the engine where Oxygen and Air are mixed and ignited. This explosion pushes a plate (think of it as a cork which can move) up and it falls back down when the explosion ends. 

Turbocharger- A little fan connected to the car's exhaust. When the engine produces exhaust, it spins this fan which is connected to a tube. The fan pushes air into this tube which is connected to the engine. This air pressure is pushed into each piston before the explosion occurs. The more oxygen in the piston leads to a larger explosion leading to more power.

Supercharger- A fan connected to the top of the engine. It is super simple. The fan is connected to a huge belt on the front of the car called the timing belt. This belt spins when the engine is on, and powers numerous components on the engine. This belt spins the fan (supercharger) which is connected to the air intake (where air enters the engine and goes into each piston). This fan pushes more air into the engine than the normal amount of air, so it has the same affect as a turbocharger.

Now that i've defined some terms, I can talk about current technologies and the future. Car manufacturers have started making tiny engines (4 cylinders) with the power of bigger engines such as 6 or 8 cylinder engines. The way this is possible is by using two turbochargers. This allows them to get a ton of power out of a smaller engine. You may be wondering what the point of this is, but the points are very important. A smaller engine saves a lot of weight, it is more efficient, and a lot more compact. Plus produces less emissions for all of you who support cutting down emissions to save the planet! A new technology is called an Electric turbocharger which is the same as a normal turbocharger except the fact that it uses a motor to spin it. this means you are able to get constant boost into the engine. If the engine is designed to handle all the boost, the power output from the engine could potentially be off the charts! We later learned that with the right amount of technological improvements, the electric car would definitely be the replacement for the gasoline engine. One main reason is the performance of the car. Once battery technology improves, and motor efficiency improves- the car will be able to do a lot of miles. We also found that electric cars don't need a transmission. A transmission is designed to keep the engine at a certain RPM which leads to the highest power output. If a car's RPM is too high or low, it will actually be producing less power. An electric motor has a linear torque curve meaning that it needs no transmission, and will consistently keep applying power to the wheels. This is a huge improvement. Problem with electric cars is the fact that the batteries are too heavy, don't hold enough charge, and the motors are too inefficient for the batteries capacity. 

Now, time to talk about the 20time presentation. I would call it a failure for two reasons. First off, our topic isn't necessarily something that can be discussed in 4 minutes. In order to make sure the audience completely understands what I am talking about, it would take at least 10 minutes easily. This forced me to try and rush the details which we researched. To Mr. Orre and the audience, it may have seemed like we didn't do much work, but all out research lies in the details which brings me to my second point. The more i explained how an engine works, the more the audience was loosing attention. Once i saw this trend, i quickly stopped talking about the details. I confirmed this at the end of the presentation because people were saying that I went too far. The problem is, I barely even scratched the surface of the research we did for our 20 time project. This means we didn't necessarily get a great grade even though the effort was there. If we had some time before the presentation to teach the audience some of the key terms and ideas about how an engine works, everything would have made sense, and we would have been able to showcase our work. Unfortunately, this didn't go as planned. Also, our presentation was way over the limit.