#assignment_2 alaa+matt+stephen connectiveenvironments castingconcrete lasercutter

[sgrotz-blog]

Loads of Potential

It was our team’s goal to store as much potential energy as possible to help our car fly across the table.  We began the process of exploring how to store energy with torsion springs cut from delrin but we quickly made the jump to cast concrete (Rockite).

The torsion springs seemed to break no matter how we designed them to bend (plastic is inherently brittle).  We focused our attention on flywheels which we decide to cast with Rockite to allow for the greatest amount of customization.  Our first flywheels only measured 2.5″ in diameter.  The image shown above was 6″ across because we calculated that the mass is important, but the larger diameter is more important.

We concluded that the two 6″ flywheels were massive but they put a lot of strain on the car’s axles.  There was also too much friction at all of the joints were the gears, flywheels, and wheels met the axles.  No matter how much potential energy is stored, the car’s mechanics have to be efficient or else the car simple will not move.  The wheels should be able to spin for multiple seconds with a simple flick of a finger, and if they don't, your car will only move with a big push.

One final idea that was proposed that I wish we could have explored was the idea of rolling the car multiple times across the table to build up potential energy in the flywheel and then setting it on the table top to let the flywheel spin freely for multiple seconds and propel the car forward.