Yesterday we had another great BSEC meeting -- our third good one in a row! :) We had gotten stuck in a bit of a rut with endless Egg Drop delays, but the payoff was good, and now we're on a roll. ;)
PRELIMINARIES
This time, we started off by playing around a bit with Peter's mini-helicopter, a simple styrofoam disc with a remote-controlled propeller facing down. Pull the trigger on the remote, it rises. Pull more, it rises more. Let go a bit, it drops. No steering, but very very fun. It also works as a top if it lands upside-down.
Then the camera and ethanol arrived. We went outside and attempted to burn some flour, but had no luck. Too much wind? Maybe. We doused a brownie in ethanol, though, and burned it in the tin popcorn can. At first we didn't think it was burning, but it was -- boiling, bubbling and blackening, in fact. Only, we couldn't see the flame. Hm. Peter soon discovered, though, that if you drip ethanol on the brownie, you can see a brief flash of flame.
SUCCESS
We went back into the Physics room, turned out the lights, closed the doors, and pulled down the shades. We repeated last meetings' successful formula -- Mr. Clippenger hold the flour in his hand, Peter blowing it over ethanol-fueled burning paper. Only, this time, Peter decided to surprise us -- ESPECIALLY Mr. Clip and Vivek, who was filming in the line of fire -- with a much bigger-than-usual bang. We could actually feel the heat; the light was amazing. MUCH better than last meetings' puny poofs. We did it a few more times; we discovered that Peter could blow a bit, then blow a lot through the mini-fireball and get a nice big fireball stretching out toward Vivek. :)
I'd say our boom was at least ten times as big as the one in the last video. What would you say, Vivek? (I know you're out there...) I think it was probably about as big as my dog. Vivek has the video, so we'll just have to see.
WRAP-UP
After that we went back outside for another brownie-burn and more playing with the hovercraft. We were quite satisfied by our triumphs, and managed to fill the Physics room with a lot of smoke... incredibly, without setting off the smoke detector. (Hmmmm..... methinks we may have faulty equipment....)
All in all, much fun. I'll report in when we figure out what we'll do next time, and with luck Vivek will get some video up here some time.
Showing posts with label 05-06. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 05-06. Show all posts
Saturday, March 11, 2006
Friday, February 24, 2006
Ethanol and Flour (with video!)
Our plan for today:
1) Play with LEGO Mindstorms set
2) Blow up flour
Flour, you see, is quite flammable in airborne-dust form. So, we got into the Physics classroom and took out a tin popcorn can, some flour, and the LEGO kit. JP immediately got to work on a robot, and we started looking for key ingredients in our experiment.
We got a candle and some matches. We went outside, put the candle in the tin, and lit it. We tried dropping some flour in and we tried blowing on the layer of flour at the bottom of the tin. All was to no avail; we got no reaction. We went back inside and determined we needed a bigger flame. Vivek left to get a bunsen burner and came back with some ethanol. We tried adding a bit of that to the candle, but to no avail. A small crowd gathered but dispersed after multiple failures.
We still needed a bigger flame -- and less wind. We went back inside again and watched this video for inspiration. New strategy: we put the tin on the ground, soaked a piece of paper with the ethanol, dropped it in the tin, lit a piece of paper, dropped that in, and had a nice little fire going. We then sprinkled flour on -- a little bit at first, and then some more.
We had no real video camera, so we used the camera rocket's nose. Quality isn't great, and you don't see some of our best ones, but it's better than nothing! :)
Next meeting we'll be doing this again, since almost everyone had left by the time we succeeded. Maybe we'll get a slightly bigger boom. :)
1) Play with LEGO Mindstorms set
2) Blow up flour
Flour, you see, is quite flammable in airborne-dust form. So, we got into the Physics classroom and took out a tin popcorn can, some flour, and the LEGO kit. JP immediately got to work on a robot, and we started looking for key ingredients in our experiment.
We got a candle and some matches. We went outside, put the candle in the tin, and lit it. We tried dropping some flour in and we tried blowing on the layer of flour at the bottom of the tin. All was to no avail; we got no reaction. We went back inside and determined we needed a bigger flame. Vivek left to get a bunsen burner and came back with some ethanol. We tried adding a bit of that to the candle, but to no avail. A small crowd gathered but dispersed after multiple failures.
We still needed a bigger flame -- and less wind. We went back inside again and watched this video for inspiration. New strategy: we put the tin on the ground, soaked a piece of paper with the ethanol, dropped it in the tin, lit a piece of paper, dropped that in, and had a nice little fire going. We then sprinkled flour on -- a little bit at first, and then some more.
We had no real video camera, so we used the camera rocket's nose. Quality isn't great, and you don't see some of our best ones, but it's better than nothing! :)
Next meeting we'll be doing this again, since almost everyone had left by the time we succeeded. Maybe we'll get a slightly bigger boom. :)
Egg Drop Aftermath: Autopsies
As today marks the two-week anniversary of our momentous egg launch contest, I thought I'd fill you in with a little more detail concerning the fates of our three rockets.
Vivek & Co. Potato Gun
Vivek's group's egg was, needless to say, completely obliterated. The vessel carrying it was just as wholy annihilated. The egg formed a small crater in the sand of the baseball diamond (see image at right).
The potato gun suffered some trauma of its own. As you can see in the video, Mr. Clippenger screwed the cap on very thoroughly. Unfortunately, this resulted in the cap being stuck shut. Fortunately, the issue has been resolved. :)
In addition, a small black film canister was found in the barrel of the potato gun. My hypothesis is that the canister was somehow part of Vivek's team's contraption, although I can't be sure.
Peter & Co. Long Rocket
Peter's group suffered a sad blow when their rocket's engine shot up through the body, through the egg, and forced its way out the top. The rocket itself never left the ground. The egg, found shortly thereafter, had a scorch mark and had been shattered, albeit not as completely as Vivek's.
The body shows few signs of trauma. One fin had broken off, although it is unclear how. The fin was found some time after the competition had concluded for the day, and was splattered somewhat with egg. The initial assumption was that the fin had come from my group's stubby cup rocket, but was changed after witnessed the missing fin on Peter's rocket.
The upper tube shows a slight rip in the cardboard, although it is unclear whether or not this was a result of the engine malfunction. The parachute, which (using the hole in the middle) had been slipped down over the nose of the rocket prior to launch, showed slight burns and fusing, although it is again unclear whether it was a recent injury.
The interior of the body shows no readily visible signs of scorching.
Toph & Co. Cup Rocket
The rocket appeared to launch well. The top portion separated as it was supposed to; the second stage opened up like a clamshell and deployed the parachute, just as it was supposed to. But upon landing it was found that the cup had split along the side and was oozing egg.
As it was a relatively soft landing, it is not clearly understood why the cup split. It is possible, from examining the video, that the rocket may have hit a tree branch. This would explain the strange crack, which we believe could not have resulted from that landing.
A second idea is that the stresses of liftoff cracked, compressed, and/or split the egg and cup. The parachute ejection charge that separated the booster phase from the carrier phase may also be to blame.
Mysteriously, the whereabouts of the remains of the cup rocket remain unknown. The video depicts Mr. Clippenger bringing it off to one side, but it is unclear exactly what he did to it or what happened thereafter.
Conclusion
Our inaugural egg launch/drop contest was not a success. However, it was certainly entertaining and educational. We look forward to a second contest sometime next year. That contest will hopefully be both better documented and more carefully analyzed. This is the Beaver SCIENCE and Engineering Club, after all. We should attempt next time to calculate such properties of each launch as velocity, distance, height, and more.
Vivek & Co. Potato Gun
Vivek's group's egg was, needless to say, completely obliterated. The vessel carrying it was just as wholy annihilated. The egg formed a small crater in the sand of the baseball diamond (see image at right).
The potato gun suffered some trauma of its own. As you can see in the video, Mr. Clippenger screwed the cap on very thoroughly. Unfortunately, this resulted in the cap being stuck shut. Fortunately, the issue has been resolved. :)
In addition, a small black film canister was found in the barrel of the potato gun. My hypothesis is that the canister was somehow part of Vivek's team's contraption, although I can't be sure.
Peter & Co. Long Rocket
Peter's group suffered a sad blow when their rocket's engine shot up through the body, through the egg, and forced its way out the top. The rocket itself never left the ground. The egg, found shortly thereafter, had a scorch mark and had been shattered, albeit not as completely as Vivek's.
The body shows few signs of trauma. One fin had broken off, although it is unclear how. The fin was found some time after the competition had concluded for the day, and was splattered somewhat with egg. The initial assumption was that the fin had come from my group's stubby cup rocket, but was changed after witnessed the missing fin on Peter's rocket.
The upper tube shows a slight rip in the cardboard, although it is unclear whether or not this was a result of the engine malfunction. The parachute, which (using the hole in the middle) had been slipped down over the nose of the rocket prior to launch, showed slight burns and fusing, although it is again unclear whether it was a recent injury.
The interior of the body shows no readily visible signs of scorching.
Toph & Co. Cup Rocket
The rocket appeared to launch well. The top portion separated as it was supposed to; the second stage opened up like a clamshell and deployed the parachute, just as it was supposed to. But upon landing it was found that the cup had split along the side and was oozing egg.
As it was a relatively soft landing, it is not clearly understood why the cup split. It is possible, from examining the video, that the rocket may have hit a tree branch. This would explain the strange crack, which we believe could not have resulted from that landing.
A second idea is that the stresses of liftoff cracked, compressed, and/or split the egg and cup. The parachute ejection charge that separated the booster phase from the carrier phase may also be to blame.
Mysteriously, the whereabouts of the remains of the cup rocket remain unknown. The video depicts Mr. Clippenger bringing it off to one side, but it is unclear exactly what he did to it or what happened thereafter.
Conclusion
Our inaugural egg launch/drop contest was not a success. However, it was certainly entertaining and educational. We look forward to a second contest sometime next year. That contest will hopefully be both better documented and more carefully analyzed. This is the Beaver SCIENCE and Engineering Club, after all. We should attempt next time to calculate such properties of each launch as velocity, distance, height, and more.
Friday, February 17, 2006
Egg Drop Aftermath: Update
As you saw in Vivek's last post, our thrice-delayed egg drop contest was finally concluded last Friday. I think it was a big success, at least in terms of entertainment value. :)
The only bad thing that happened all day was the final rocket getting stuck in a tree. I am now happy to report that Mr. Clippenger has managed to retrieve the rocket, and it seems to be in pretty good shape, despite its week exposed to the elements (including snow, and lots of it).
You can see in Vivek's video that it was hanging very precariously from the end of a thin branch. It actually fell from that spot even before we went back inside, only to land more securely in the neighboring pine. Fortunately, it's fine now. I was prepared to blast the tree with a potato...
The stormy edge of the silver lining to the stormy cloud of landing-in-a-tree-ness is that, well, we forget to start the camera rolling. :( Hey, don't blame us -- it was freezing out there, the wind knocked over the launch pad and rocket if you waited more than 30 seconds, it was our fourth launch of the day, and we were eager to go back inside and eat lunch. But the recovery means it shall live to film another day -- the meeting after next, perhaps?
Speaking of last meeting, the consensus at this point is to break out the Mindstorms and play around. Stay tuned.
The only bad thing that happened all day was the final rocket getting stuck in a tree. I am now happy to report that Mr. Clippenger has managed to retrieve the rocket, and it seems to be in pretty good shape, despite its week exposed to the elements (including snow, and lots of it).
You can see in Vivek's video that it was hanging very precariously from the end of a thin branch. It actually fell from that spot even before we went back inside, only to land more securely in the neighboring pine. Fortunately, it's fine now. I was prepared to blast the tree with a potato...
The stormy edge of the silver lining to the stormy cloud of landing-in-a-tree-ness is that, well, we forget to start the camera rolling. :( Hey, don't blame us -- it was freezing out there, the wind knocked over the launch pad and rocket if you waited more than 30 seconds, it was our fourth launch of the day, and we were eager to go back inside and eat lunch. But the recovery means it shall live to film another day -- the meeting after next, perhaps?
Speaking of last meeting, the consensus at this point is to break out the Mindstorms and play around. Stay tuned.
Sunday, January 08, 2006
Sixth Meeting Preview: Egg Drop Finale
This Friday we are concluding our egg drop contest, which we have spent the past two meetings preparing. Attendance dropped to an all-time low last meeting, and we're hoping to get some more people at this one.
Peter Wilmot's group will launch their egg-rocket, as will mine. Vivek's group will launch their egg out of the potato gun. And filming all the excitement will be a rocket with a down-facing video camera launched seconds before the others, which will hopefully give us some idea of how high the different eggs went.
Come by and watch!
Peter Wilmot's group will launch their egg-rocket, as will mine. Vivek's group will launch their egg out of the potato gun. And filming all the excitement will be a rocket with a down-facing video camera launched seconds before the others, which will hopefully give us some idea of how high the different eggs went.
Come by and watch!
Thursday, December 01, 2005
Potential Future Projects
There's so much fun to be had with ballistics, robotics, engineering and science in general. Way too much to fit it all in, especially considering we can only meet once every two weeks. But here are some potential long-term projects.
---
Potato Gun: Build One
Build a new potato gun. More powerful, more adaptable, smaller, bigger, easier to use, whatever -- just better in general. We could stick with combustion or move to a pnuematics-based system.
Potato Gun: Stress Testing
Fire a potato at things and see how well they hold up. Brick wall? Wood wall? Pile of cans? Pile of trash cans? A dummy?
Oh, wouldn't it be fun to have a dummy...
;-)
Potato Rocket [& Launcher]
Stick a rocket engine in a potato and see what happens. Or adapt the potato gun to work as a sort of potato rocket launcher. :)
Rockets: Misc.
Experiment with building rockets in different ways. Two stage, multiple simultaneous engines, booster rockets - you name it. Maybe have a contest, "who can build the coolest rocket."
Rocket-Powered Merry-Go-Round
Stick a rocket on the side of a miniaturemerry-go-round and make a rocket-powered merry-go-round.
Rocket-Powered Other Stuff
Name something, and we'll make it rocket-powered. Frisbee, for instance.
Well, not anything... safety first, remember! :)
Bridge-Building Contest
Build a bridge. The one that can support the most weight wins!
(Bonus points for making it potato gun-proof.)
Remote Controlled Car/Boat/Plane
Bonus points for making it intelligent, and thus a robot. More bonus points for making it rocket-powered! :)
Soccer Robot
Make a soccer-playing robot... or, even better, a team of soccer-playing robots!
Robotics: Misc.
Make other cool robots. :)
Hovercraft
Bigger? Smaller? Faster? Maneuverable?
Rocket-powered???
Actual Physics
Calculate how far a potato or rocket goes, project trajectories, and so on. This would just be incorporated into our other projects.
---
I will update this list as we come up with more ideas. Stay tuned!
---
Potato Gun: Build One
Build a new potato gun. More powerful, more adaptable, smaller, bigger, easier to use, whatever -- just better in general. We could stick with combustion or move to a pnuematics-based system.
Potato Gun: Stress Testing
Fire a potato at things and see how well they hold up. Brick wall? Wood wall? Pile of cans? Pile of trash cans? A dummy?
Oh, wouldn't it be fun to have a dummy...
;-)
Potato Rocket [& Launcher]
Stick a rocket engine in a potato and see what happens. Or adapt the potato gun to work as a sort of potato rocket launcher. :)
Rockets: Misc.
Experiment with building rockets in different ways. Two stage, multiple simultaneous engines, booster rockets - you name it. Maybe have a contest, "who can build the coolest rocket."
Rocket-Powered Merry-Go-Round
Stick a rocket on the side of a miniaturemerry-go-round and make a rocket-powered merry-go-round.
Rocket-Powered Other Stuff
Name something, and we'll make it rocket-powered. Frisbee, for instance.
Well, not anything... safety first, remember! :)
Bridge-Building Contest
Build a bridge. The one that can support the most weight wins!
(Bonus points for making it potato gun-proof.)
Remote Controlled Car/Boat/Plane
Bonus points for making it intelligent, and thus a robot. More bonus points for making it rocket-powered! :)
Soccer Robot
Make a soccer-playing robot... or, even better, a team of soccer-playing robots!
Robotics: Misc.
Make other cool robots. :)
Hovercraft
Bigger? Smaller? Faster? Maneuverable?
Rocket-powered???
Actual Physics
Calculate how far a potato or rocket goes, project trajectories, and so on. This would just be incorporated into our other projects.
---
I will update this list as we come up with more ideas. Stay tuned!
Third Meeting - Preview
Tomorrow, December 2nd, we are having our fourth meeting. Unfortunately, it will be slightly shorter than usual because of a special schedule.
We will be starting an egg drop contest, which we will finish at our next meeting. Contestants must get an egg as high as possible while still having it return to the ground intact. There are four options available:
1. Send your egg up in a rocket. High risk, high yield, medium-high fun.
2. Launch your egg out of the potato gun. High risk, medium-high yield, high fun.
3. Toss your egg up in the air. Low risk, low yield, low fun.
4. Come up with something else!
We will supply:
- Rocket bodies
- Engines
- All other rocket launch equipment (pad etc.)
- Potato gun
- Plastic cups
- Everything left over from the Rube Goldberg machines contest
- And anything else you can find :)
---
If you couldn't care less about eggs, a couple kids might also start experimenting with LEGO MindStorms. We will also talk about a couple of upcoming local competitions which we might want to enter.
We will be starting an egg drop contest, which we will finish at our next meeting. Contestants must get an egg as high as possible while still having it return to the ground intact. There are four options available:
1. Send your egg up in a rocket. High risk, high yield, medium-high fun.
2. Launch your egg out of the potato gun. High risk, medium-high yield, high fun.
3. Toss your egg up in the air. Low risk, low yield, low fun.
4. Come up with something else!
We will supply:
- Rocket bodies
- Engines
- All other rocket launch equipment (pad etc.)
- Potato gun
- Plastic cups
- Everything left over from the Rube Goldberg machines contest
- And anything else you can find :)
---
If you couldn't care less about eggs, a couple kids might also start experimenting with LEGO MindStorms. We will also talk about a couple of upcoming local competitions which we might want to enter.
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
Inventory: Robotics & Other
As you may already know, the BSEC's goals extend far beyond model rocketry. While we're not off to such an explosive start with our robotics program, we've had lots of fun -- the most fun of all, in fact -- with our potato gun.
What follows is a partial listing of our non-rocketry materials.
Toph Tucker
1 potato gun
1 beginner's LEGO MindStorms set
1 even more of a beginner's LEGO MindStorms set (virtually non-programmable)
1 robotic arm (unassembled; quite complex)
Peter Wilmot
Know-how, experience and some robotics magazines. Details to follow.
Vivek Pai
Enthusiasm and "neverending charm." :-) Details to follow.
What follows is a partial listing of our non-rocketry materials.
Toph Tucker
1 potato gun
1 beginner's LEGO MindStorms set
1 even more of a beginner's LEGO MindStorms set (virtually non-programmable)
1 robotic arm (unassembled; quite complex)
Peter Wilmot
Know-how, experience and some robotics magazines. Details to follow.
Vivek Pai
Enthusiasm and "neverending charm." :-) Details to follow.
Monday, November 14, 2005
Inventory: Rockets
Following the disappointment of last Friday's failed launch, I have re-evaluated our supplies. The club has actually inherited a fairly large supply of rocketry materials from its three co-founders. A partial list follows.
---
Toph Tucker
2 fully built & waterproofed rockets (engine sizes A / B / C)
2 unbuilt rockets
2 unbuilt mini rockets
4 large launch pads (various stages of completion)
1 mini launch pad
5 "Electron Beam" electronic launch controllers
2 spare parachutes
2 paratrooper figures
3 launch rod caps (with wind streamers)
1 plain orange streamer
4 B6-4 engines
LOTS of wadding, plugs and manuals :)
Peter Wilmot
Lots of fun stuff. Unclear how much we'll be able to use. Details to follow. :)
Vivek Pai
At least two built standard-sized rockets. Details to follow.
---
Wish List
While I have the four B6-4 engines -- that's roughly medium-sized, folks -- I do not have any igniters to go with them. That, of course, is an issue, and basically means that we can't use those engines until we get igniters for them.
Over Thanksgiving break I will be looking into some new acquisitions, possibly including additional engines/igniters, larger engines, and larger rocket kits. We hope to have a brief planning session before the break in order to decide what we want to get.
At some point in the future we hope to attempt a multi-stage rocket. Instead of enjoying only one thrust phase, multi-stage rockets drop their lower portion as they peak and begin another thrust phase. It would also be fun to see what we could do with larger rockets. I'm still bent on including a couple of small payloads: candy bags with parachutes and a small bunch of ants. (Why? Just because they'd survive! They fall slowly enough that, as long as we don't fly them into the upper atmosphere or kill them during launch, they'd make it down all right.)
Stay tuned, and be sure to email one of us if you have any suggestions.
---
Toph Tucker
2 fully built & waterproofed rockets (engine sizes A / B / C)
2 unbuilt rockets
2 unbuilt mini rockets
4 large launch pads (various stages of completion)
1 mini launch pad
5 "Electron Beam" electronic launch controllers
2 spare parachutes
2 paratrooper figures
3 launch rod caps (with wind streamers)
1 plain orange streamer
4 B6-4 engines
LOTS of wadding, plugs and manuals :)
Peter Wilmot
Lots of fun stuff. Unclear how much we'll be able to use. Details to follow. :)
Vivek Pai
At least two built standard-sized rockets. Details to follow.
---
Wish List
While I have the four B6-4 engines -- that's roughly medium-sized, folks -- I do not have any igniters to go with them. That, of course, is an issue, and basically means that we can't use those engines until we get igniters for them.
Over Thanksgiving break I will be looking into some new acquisitions, possibly including additional engines/igniters, larger engines, and larger rocket kits. We hope to have a brief planning session before the break in order to decide what we want to get.
At some point in the future we hope to attempt a multi-stage rocket. Instead of enjoying only one thrust phase, multi-stage rockets drop their lower portion as they peak and begin another thrust phase. It would also be fun to see what we could do with larger rockets. I'm still bent on including a couple of small payloads: candy bags with parachutes and a small bunch of ants. (Why? Just because they'd survive! They fall slowly enough that, as long as we don't fly them into the upper atmosphere or kill them during launch, they'd make it down all right.)
Stay tuned, and be sure to email one of us if you have any suggestions.
Monday, October 31, 2005
Second Meeting: Rube Goldberg Machines - Toph's Take
Simplicity may be a virtue, but not in this case. :)
What I failed to make clear in my last posts is that the point of this exercise was to make a complicated Rube Goldberg machine -- which I called, for want of better words (which I have now found), a "simple machine," when in fact it is a string of simple machines (levels, pulleys, weights, ramps, and so on) put together. For an excellent example of what we were attempting, watch the amazing "Cog" Honda advert, which we showed to the contestants before they began.
In any case, I maintain that our loss was not as pathetic as Vivek made it out to be. ;-) The design was sound; we just ran out of time for fine tuning. Yes, we lost, but we put up a good fight.
Here is how the two machines worked, with steps marked.
Winners
1. A marble is dropped down a looped ramp
2. The marble knocks a ping pong ball onto a metal cart on a metal track
3. The cart rolls off the track...
4. ...down a ramp...
5. ...and onto a padded chair
Losers
While our lack of fine-tuning meant that the machine never worked from start to finish (we got the individual parts to work, and even got through a couple steps in a row), here is our design:
1. A ping pong ball is dropped down a cardboard tube
2. The ping pong ball hits half of a straightened paper on its way through the tube, which acts as a level to push a marble down a second tube
3. The ball and marble roll into two cups on a metal cart -- marble on the bottom, ping pong ball on top -- on a metal track
4. The force of impact knocks the cart back on its tracks, which pulls a weight attached to the cart by a string off the edge of a table
5. The weight falls, pulling the cart to the end of the track
6. The cart is jolted to a stop by a metal gate at the end of the track, knocking the ping pong ball out of its cup and into a tube
7. Both machines end similarly: our ball, too, rolls onto a table and off the edge
-----------
Note that we had no time for the potato gun "Ballistic Battle" mentioned in my earlier preview. It has been delayed until our third meeting.
What I failed to make clear in my last posts is that the point of this exercise was to make a complicated Rube Goldberg machine -- which I called, for want of better words (which I have now found), a "simple machine," when in fact it is a string of simple machines (levels, pulleys, weights, ramps, and so on) put together. For an excellent example of what we were attempting, watch the amazing "Cog" Honda advert, which we showed to the contestants before they began.
In any case, I maintain that our loss was not as pathetic as Vivek made it out to be. ;-) The design was sound; we just ran out of time for fine tuning. Yes, we lost, but we put up a good fight.
Here is how the two machines worked, with steps marked.
Winners
1. A marble is dropped down a looped ramp
2. The marble knocks a ping pong ball onto a metal cart on a metal track
3. The cart rolls off the track...
4. ...down a ramp...
5. ...and onto a padded chair
Losers
While our lack of fine-tuning meant that the machine never worked from start to finish (we got the individual parts to work, and even got through a couple steps in a row), here is our design:
1. A ping pong ball is dropped down a cardboard tube
2. The ping pong ball hits half of a straightened paper on its way through the tube, which acts as a level to push a marble down a second tube
3. The ball and marble roll into two cups on a metal cart -- marble on the bottom, ping pong ball on top -- on a metal track
4. The force of impact knocks the cart back on its tracks, which pulls a weight attached to the cart by a string off the edge of a table
5. The weight falls, pulling the cart to the end of the track
6. The cart is jolted to a stop by a metal gate at the end of the track, knocking the ping pong ball out of its cup and into a tube
7. Both machines end similarly: our ball, too, rolls onto a table and off the edge
-----------
Note that we had no time for the potato gun "Ballistic Battle" mentioned in my earlier preview. It has been delayed until our third meeting.
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
Long-Term Goals
Vivek already posted the brainstorming notes from our last meeting, but I thought I'd elaborate on a few points.
Robotics
There are several robotics competitions that we could theoretically enter -- and, at some point, we hope to. We'll start small, with things like LEGO Mindstorms and other kits, and perhaps build our way up to more fun, useful, crazy ideas.
Like a hovering robot... oo....
With a mounted potato gun...
Ooo....
Hovercraft
Unfortunately, a hovercraft like the one we're hoping to eventually make (see earlier post) is extremely hard to build and would take a very, very long time. We're certainly still hoping to make one -- it will just take a long, long time. :)
Cloning
While I'm certainly happy people are enthusiastic about throwing out wild ideas -- that's the whole point of brainstorming, after all -- this one's, well, just a wee little bit unlikely.
Not to mention illegal.
So I'd say we won't be cloning any time soon...
:-)
Robotics
There are several robotics competitions that we could theoretically enter -- and, at some point, we hope to. We'll start small, with things like LEGO Mindstorms and other kits, and perhaps build our way up to more fun, useful, crazy ideas.
Like a hovering robot... oo....
With a mounted potato gun...
Ooo....
Hovercraft
Unfortunately, a hovercraft like the one we're hoping to eventually make (see earlier post) is extremely hard to build and would take a very, very long time. We're certainly still hoping to make one -- it will just take a long, long time. :)
Cloning
While I'm certainly happy people are enthusiastic about throwing out wild ideas -- that's the whole point of brainstorming, after all -- this one's, well, just a wee little bit unlikely.
Not to mention illegal.
So I'd say we won't be cloning any time soon...
:-)
Second Meeting - Preview
Hi, my name is Toph Tucker. I'm one of the co-founders of the BSEC, and will probably be posting here a lot.
Although Vivek mentioned it earlier, here's a preview of our second meeting, which will be happening on Friday, October 28 in the Physics room (S5) below the Library.
Simple Machines Contest
In our first-ever competition, each group (you may work in pairs of two, with one group of three if we have an odd number of participants) must build a simple Rube Goldberg machine. The task (subject to change) is to move a ping pong ball through the most number of steps. (For example, rolling down a tube would be one step; falling into a cup might be another.)
We will supply materials. The rough list follows:
Although Vivek mentioned it earlier, here's a preview of our second meeting, which will be happening on Friday, October 28 in the Physics room (S5) below the Library.
Simple Machines Contest
In our first-ever competition, each group (you may work in pairs of two, with one group of three if we have an odd number of participants) must build a simple Rube Goldberg machine. The task (subject to change) is to move a ping pong ball through the most number of steps. (For example, rolling down a tube would be one step; falling into a cup might be another.)
We will supply materials. The rough list follows:
- Ping Pong Balls
- Straws
- Balloons
- Paper Cups
- Cardboard Tubes
- Paper
- String
- Paper Clips
- Rubber Bands
We will also supply basic construction materials:
- Tape
- Glue
- Scissors
We hope to see all club members there! Start planning!
Potato Gun Contest
In our first Ballistic Battle, two potato guns square off to see which can shoot the farthest. Stay tuned!
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