BAKING SODA AND VINEGAR
POWERED CAR
Stephanie Barnes, Alex Andre, TJ Pearson
THE TEAM
REACTION CHEMISTRY
We used 7g of Baking Soda and 100mL of Vinegar to theoretically produce
2.86 atmospheres of pressure in the 700mL Propel bottle.
CAR DESIGN
RESULTS
Trial # Amount of Baking Soda (g) Amount of Vinegar (mL) Distance (ft)
1
11.5
150
35
2
9.5
120
20
3
9.5
130
30
4
9
125
35
5
7
100
24
6
7
100
26
7
7
100
24.5
8
7
100
23
9
7
100
27
10
7
100
25
RESULTS
Distance (ft)
Amount of Baking Soda and Vinegar
Compared to Distance
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
CONCLUSION
Our car placed 4th in our lab class. Overall, the
distances the car went were fairly consistent, although they
were a few feet short of the goal most of the time.
We went through about eight different car designs
until we finally had a successful run. At first, we wanted to
use a balloon instead of a bottle, but we could not get it to
go more than 6 feet.
Another issue we faced was with the HCl and Baking
Soda reaction, which we could not make consistent. We
finally decided to use Baking Soda and Vinegar reaction
because we had a better understanding of the chemistry
behind it and how much of each chemical to use to attain
the right distance with our car.
IDEAS FOR NEXT TIME
If we were to do this experiment again, we
would try to find a balloon large enough to hold a
greater amount of gas. The benefits of using a
balloon rather than a bottle is that the reaction
would not take place within the balloon; the
balloon would simply be a means for catching the
gas produced from the reaction which would take
place in a bottle not attached to the car. This
would eliminate spew entirely.