Side-Impact Crash Superhero – Who Will Save the Day with a Better Safety Feature?
In car crashes, serious injuries are more likely to occur in side-impact crashes since passengers can be extremely close to the impact site with no protective region of the car to crumple and absorb the impact. Therefore, it is imperative that we find as many improvements to car design as possible that could help prevent or lessen the impact of side-impact collisions. In this activity, students brainstorm ideas to best reduce side-impact collision, and then build and test their prototypes. Students then have the opportunity to improve their design before final testing. After final testing each team reports on the ideas and successes of their design.
Engineering safety features in a car is critical in lessening the damage from side-impact car crashes.Copyright 2010 Brady Holt, CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11113647 e Law Offices of
Engineers design the cars we drive and ride in every day. They are responsible for the many components of the car; from its shape and how it reacts to the airflow around the vehicle, to the engine and how to get the best performance. Engineers even help design electronics in the vehicle. One specific area of engineering for vehicles is crash test safety. Engineers work hard to make vehicles as safe as possible for the people inside, especially during crashes. Sometimes engineers purposefully crash the cars to see how they perform in a crash scenario. They use this data to make the cars even safer.
After this activity, students should be able to:
- Apply the physics of forces to safety during car crashes.
- Describe how force AND time affect the impulse (or impact) of collisions.
- Design a car safety feature specific for side-impact crashes and test the feasibility of their idea.