Materials
If you define materials other than the default materials, then you can choose which material each part will be made from. It is important to specify the materials that you will actually use when you build the car, because the projections made by Virtual Car depend on the properties (such as densities and thicknesses) of the materials that are used.
The default materials are:
- Foamcore: One-half inch thickness, available at many craft and office supply stores in sheets ranging from 20 x 30 inches to 30 x 40 inches.
- Oak wood dowel: available at most hardware stores and many craft stores.
- Plastic (PETE): cut from an ordinary 2-liter soda bottle.
- Ideal rubber: a very "tacky" rubber band having a coefficient of friction equal to 1.0. Many soft rubber bands have a coefficient close to this figure, but you may have better results by testing your own rubber bands.
To define new materials, you will need to gather the following information about their physical properties, by measuring and experimenting:
- Board materials: thickness (inches) and density (lb/cubic inch).
- Axle materials: density (lb/cubic inch).
- Spring materials: thickness (inches), density (lb/cubic inch), maximum torque (inch-lb).
- Tread materials: coefficient of static friction.