Thursday, November 21, 2013

Marble Drop Challenge



Criteria:
To build a mechanism that moves a marble into a cup once you drop it off of a table. Whoever gets it in from the longest distance wins
Constraints:
2 feet of tape, 14 straws, 3 cups, and a marble. The Marble has to be pushed off of the table and not placed in the cup
Results:
Caleb's group got first place, our group got second, and Tommy's got third.

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Mousetrap Cars Challenge

These last few weeks we have been working on mouse trap cars, that had to move without being pushhed or pulled, and are moved by their own power. I was on a team with Jason, and these are our achievements.
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We have 12 achievements
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Brainiac:
  • A really long car with small wheels to give more space for the mousetrap to pull
  • A short stubby car with big wheels to make it have more traction and be lighter
  • A triangle shaped car where the mousetrap hangs and pulls
  • Big wheels on the back to have more traction
  • A car with a propeller powered by the mousetrap
  • A car made of cardboard so its lighter
  • Using legos to make it lighter
  • A triangle shaped car with a weight on it
  • A car with a big tower on it with a weight hanging down
Visualize it!

Build it!

The cost of glory
4 x Yellow Beams
4 x Axles
4 x Wheels
1 x String
1 x Egg
2 x Padlocks
20 x Metal struts
2 x Pulley Wheels
4 x Connectors
1 x Lego Person
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43 Dollars

The Race
Our car went really slow and didn't go very far (around 6 feet) but its okay because our car was unique

Competitor
We competed!

Feedback
+ Our car was really unique, we didn't use the mousetrap to power it, only gravity
- We were really slow and didn't go very far
+ Our car looked really cool and was named Big Boy Butchy
- It was pretty much always falling apart

Re-Work
We changed the way the string wrapped around the axle, we changed it to the screw

Game Changer
If I could add a new rule, I would make it so the mousetrap could not be taped down so that there is more of a challenge.

Name it
Old School: Make your car move without the mousetrap powering it

Leave it Cleaner than you found it
We worked outside, and helped the other groups clean up their stuff while they helped us

Design/Build
The design/build process is the process of thinking of potential ideas, prototyping some, building a full scale, and re-iterating it to fix any problems.