Traditional Trebuchet Nick Pellegrino

http://prezi.com/ndi-avlaxztk/counterweight-trebuchet/
traditional trebuchet-5/13/14

     One arm holding the projectile, the resistance arm, swings up as the other side of the arm, the force arm is pulled down by the counterweight attached. Once the resistance arm reaches 45 degrees off the ground, one string on the sling will slide off so that the projectile, our lemons, will fly through the air to the target. While this project is nice and simple, it will reach the furthest distance in our class for sure. I think that a group of three or four is perfect for the future design we plan.
     We will start with the base and wheels and work our way up o the frame, then fulcrum, then the long arm. Before anything though, we will find the optimal arm length on both the force and resistance side, along with the best weight.
     One negative is that we have to use a lot of material to construct either trebuchet. One positive is that each one will be able to launch a lemon extremely far. Rating: 8/10
Rating: 9/10

Sumo Bot

      In a group of four, Me, Mike, Amy, and Steve, we constructed a small vehicle that could turn corners and run on batteries. We were given some small motors, gears, wheels, and piece of thin wood, batteries of our choice and a brain for its hardware. With screws, we connected the motors to the piece of wood and put the wheel axel directly onto the motor to reduce friction created from the gears. Then we put another rotational wheel on the other side to allow rotation of the vehicle to make the sharp turns on the race track. Then we connected the brain to everything and the vehicle was on a move. Below is our vehicle without the brain.

      Only two groups were able to complete the track in good time. They were Sam's and Armando's groups. Sam finished in 2:24 and Armando finished in a close 2:50. We all had a lot of fun while working on these vehicles.












    


      If we had more time on this project, I would've added smaller wheels to reduce the static friction on the car. Also, I think that gears might've helped out I little bit more. I think that if we tried a bunch of different back wheels that were not connected to the motors, we could've had more success. But, now everything is put in the past and I am looking forward to break records with my trebuchet.
      

Optical Illusion

 This project required us to use motion and color to create an image that isn't exactly what it is. This is called an illusion. I worked with Steve Alessi on this project and I am very content with our final project. We first had the idea of just a circle with some colors on it. Then we thought of making a star and coloring each point certain colors. We finally decided to combine these ideas into one, and even add a few more ideas like the pieces of wood and the bigger circle, into one amazing object, punctured by a dowel through its center of gravity. The dowel will be inserted into a spinning drill, like a drill bit and the project will spin rapidly in a circle. After reaching a certain speed, the human eye will not be able to keep up with the amazing speed and reality will then become distorted, or a least seem to change because of how fast all of the colors are moving. Considering we both missed a day of work, our final project seems to really deserve a good grade.

Nick Pellegrino

Fastener Lab

          This fastener project required immense planning and team work. Our goal was to create a sculpture from at least three pieces of wood using a designated fastener. I worked with Anthony Labriola on this project and our fasteners were paperclips. Usually paper clips are used to hold paper together, so we knew we were in for a challenge. We decided to build a fun, well known sculpture. Right away we knew that we wanted to create a field goal, about the size that could be used for a game of paper football. The overall point of the project was to learn how we can engineer different forms of objects by connecting their joints.

          This is our final project and I feel that it is similar to what I first imagined. It was hard to keep the posts and cross bar balanced but we worked together and pulled it off. It may seem like smooth sailing, but it wasn't. Parts feel apart constantly and we started to run out of time toward the final days of building. Frustration was upon us but we got it together and worked like a team to build the best sculpture we could.

          I feel that Steve, Nolan and Armando had a great idea that they really put together well. They seemed to be able to pause time within their sculpture and create floating water. Now that looks difficult to engineer. Another group that I saw work well was Mike Desmond's. They made another field goal, like us, but they used rubber bands. I really liked how they were able to balance it well and it seems like they were well-strategized in putting the rubber bands in the most efficient positions. Now we all have the knowledge about different fasteners that we could possibly put to use in future projects that are assigned. I had fun building our field goal and was able to learn a lot about different fasteners.

Build a Compound Machine

          This project made our simple machine groups think about how we can get the most mechanical advantage using three of our simple machines. The three our group used were the pulley, lever and wheel and axel. We knew that we had to step it up because the other groups had great ideas as well. We decided to put the machines together like this:

          We had the wheel and axel as the primary location for input energy. We then wrapped a string around the dowell and that string traveled through the pulleys and up to the lever up top. The weight was placed upon the opposite side of the lever than the string. We also increased the wheel and axel rotational radius, making it very easy to achieve an immense mechanical advantage. I recall that we achieved  an advantage of 90. As I remember, it was one of the highest in the class. I cannot think of a way to make our structure much better without cheating.
          It was challenging to prevent the dowels from bending because of how much weight we added at once. Also, we had trouble keeping the wheels of the pulleys aligned because the string wasn't in a straight line. I'm glad that we were able to overcome these obstacles by adding reinforcements to the structure, also adding to its stability. If we were assigned this project again, but adding in the inclined plane, I think I'd have a good idea of even increasing our mechanical advantage.