Control

The Control Reaction Team is dedicated to stopping the car. The motivation for the team is to accomplish this without mechanical breaks. Instead, a chemical mechanism, working with an Arduino, is used to bring the car to a stop at a specified distance given on the day of the competition. The distance that the car travels is indirectly measured through a constant voltage source provided by the generator attached to the axle of the car. The voltage generated causes an electrochemical plating reaction to proceed. Limiting diffusion by using a small vessel for the anode and cathode, this reaction proceeds on the time scale that the car travels. Voltage from the generator leads to the plating of the limiting reactant and causes the voltage to spike to negative infinity (practically, this is measured as zero), which is measured by the Arduino. The Arduino uses this approach to zero to tell it to cut power to the wheels. Using the idea of a titration endpoint, varying concentration in the cell allows the team to control and modify the distance that the car travels before it signals to the Arduino to cut power to the wheels.