Star Car
We decided to make a miniaturized hydrogen engine for our 2024 i2 project in order to test our mechanical engineering skills. The overall project is a hydrogen powered combustion engine, made out of PVC pipes. We wanted to show others how it wasn’t too difficult to make hydrogen engines, however it was much more difficult than we imagined. A major difficulty that we ran into was the balance between complexity and effectiveness, however we realized that PVC piping had the best ratio between time efficiency and strength. It is also a very recognizable material that would show people that wealthier companies could make these engines much stronger and much better, but the current problems are preventing major car manufacturers from mass producing them. Some of these issues include lack of hydrogen pumps and the slightly increased danger caused by the reactiveness of hydrogen. However, hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, so, considering humans last for many more thousands of years and much technological advancement, hydrogen will be much easier to collect than gasoline is. While these engines and cars exist right now, not many people really know that much about them, so we also are trying to demonstrate this technology to a more generalized audience.
