Recently, I went to machinery camp and I will show you the things that I’ve learned there!
Day 1: We didn’t do anything special, we tried to make a ball run with Keva planks but instead of making go fastest, we had to make it go slowest. Mine included 2 keva blocks and the middle empty as the track. | | <- like that. Basically, it would be big enough to make the ball fit inside it so the ball has friction with the sides of the Keva planks, but small enough so it doesn’t fall down. We also added 90 degree turns by making a 45 degree angled block, that will slow it down temporarily. We learned a lot about friction that day.
Day 2: We learned about gear ratios this day. I found out that it depends on the number of teeth the gear has. If there are 2 gears, one with 20, and one with 40 and the input gear (the one you turn) has 20 teeth. You divide 20 with 40 (output gear, one that gets turned) which is 0.5. That tells you that if you spin the input gear one full round, the output gear will only go 0.5 of a round. If the input gear is the 40-teethed one, divide it with 20, that would mean one round of the input gear would get 2 rounds from the output gear. You can try that with different ratio gears and the results would be very interesting.
Day 3: Today we used elastic force to launch ping pong balls. We made a contraption including plastic rods, screws, and nuts, so we could place the bing bong ball in a holder, pull back a large swinging rod, let go, and see the ping pong ball fly away. It was pretty simple and we got to play with it a lot.
Day 4: Was arguably the best day ever. We learned a lot about hydraulics. Like that it can lift very heavy things and engines use pistons that use hydraulics to burn oil and move the car. Hydraulics can also mechanical arms. We made a huge claw machine connected by syringes and tubes. If one syringe pushes the water, it comes out on the other side, making it stretch out. If you pull your syringe back, the arm will retract. I will include a demonstration video of my creation down below.
Day 5: We also worked with elastic force, potential energy, and kinetic energy. We made a car with 4 wheels that has a hook on the axel of the back wheels that you can hook a rubber band onto one end in the top and the axel for the back wheels. Then, when you let go, it will drive away. Also if the surface that it is driving on is slippery or hard, since the wheels are hard plastic, they will spin but not move. That’s why we put rubber bands around the wheels to give traction.
I hope you learned something with me and had fun!
Z.