SAABtec

Try rubbing your hands together very quickly, they should start to feel warm. If they do you have turned some of the movement energy of your hands into heat energy!

After a while your hands cool down but this heat energy has not disappeared it has just moved out of your hands and spread out so far you cant feel it anymore.

WHY IS HEAT SO SPECIAL AND HOW CAN IT MAKE A CAR MOVE?

The hot air balloon rises when a fire is used to heat up the air inside the balloon. When the fire is turned off the hot air escapes and the balloon drops back down towards the earth. Why does the balloon take of when it contains hot air?

When a gas such as air gets hot it takes up more space than it did when it was cold. So the hot air inside the balloon is more spread out than the cold air outside the balloon.

As the hot air inside the balloon takes up more space than the cold air outside the balloon we cant fit as much air in.

If there is less air inside the balloon it must not be as heavy as the air outside the balloon and the balloon will float upwards just like a bubble that floats towards the top of the water.

When the fire is turned off and the air inside the balloon reaches the same temperature as the air outside the balloon it will drop back down because of its own weight and the people inside.

Well we have made a balloon move and that's a good start but we still don't know how to use this heat energy to turn a cars wheels.

Let us use what we have learnt so far to figure it out

Energy exists in many forms, some we can sense and some we cant.
We can release the energy from a fuel if we burn it.
Hot air takes up more space than cold air.

PRESS THE HEAT ENGINE BUTTON TO FIND OUT MORE

The Engine

Difficulty Level 1