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To attract the young generation to chemistry, a miniature
car race was invented where cars powered by hand made batteries run a
10 meter race. Batteries must consist of charcoal, aluminum foil and
several kinds of electrolytes.
The first race was held in the major
exposition at Takashimaya with financial support from The Association of
Battery Industry in Japan. Two classes were set according to the age of
challengers, elementary school pupil and patent class and high and
junior high school student class. The numbers of teams that participated were 21 for
the first class and 42 for the second class. A big audience formed during
race. The fastest record was 5.6 seconds for 10 meters.
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» Making Batteries
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» Battery on a Car
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» Ready to Start
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» View of the Track
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The second race was held together with the
mini-exposition at The National Museum of Future Science and Innovation in
Odaiba, Tokyo on August 23 and 24, 2002. The number of teams that participated was
13 for the first class and 49 for the second. During the one-year interval, two
modifications were made.
First, the race lane for high and junior high school
class was extended by 5 meters and the last 5 meters was inclined to make a slight
up-slope. This made the difference in power of each car clearer and many failed
to reach the goal. The second one was for battery efficiency. For this, competition without cars
was carried out. The special wheel and weight system was invented to measure the
torque of motors. More than 100 people challenged themselves to build the most powerful battery.
Predictably, those who had good results during the car race were those
who were able to build powerful batteries for the car-less competition.
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