Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Mr. Pochop
POE per. 5
29 September, 2017
For our complex machine, we decided to create a rubber band gun using an seriously over
release and firing mechanism, has changed various times to the extent that the final product
works quite differently than the original design, though it still accomplishes the task of firing a
rubber band (most of the time, I mean, we're talking at least 60% here) in a unique, albeit
convoluted, way. The greatest challenge of producing this compound machine was devising an
effective firing release mechanism, as most designs failed to work with consistency. Although
most of these designs likely would have been fine for the sake of the project grade, it just didn't
feel right to have a machine without a purpose. After various reconfigurations of basically
generator of mechanical advantage, spinning a chain and sprocket system, with the end sprocket
being connected by axle to a gear train intended to create two opposing directions. The outermost
gears would then be connected to two inverse chain and sprocket systems by axle, spinning in
opposite directions. The end of the axle of each outer sprocket would then have a string thing
(for the sake of simplicity, let's just call it a pulley, as it should function similarly to a fixed
pulley in terms of mechanical advantage) coiled on it. The end of the string on the front pulley
would then be connected to an extruding bar, while the other would be connected similarly,
though this bar would have a wedge at the end. When spun, these two bars would be pulled apart
and eventually the rubber band would come loose on the wedge and be released. These two bars
that is fed into is scrapped with the wheel and axle (it really looks like a leaver though, am I
right) being directly connected to the gear train. The final gear to the front was also removed,
along with the pulley, and its chain and sprocket was instead diverted to the axle to the rearmost
of the machine through the new frontmost axle (the one adjacent to the center of the gear train) to
increase traction. At this time, the gear train is arranged to generate speed rather than torque, for
reference. The release platform was also changed, with the frontmost bar being affixed to the
front of the machine, without any maneuverability, relying on the rear bar to move. After this
second design, we opted to trade the sliding mechanism which was unreliable on shooting for a
sprocket release which is similar to that on normal rubber band guns, this change made the
machine prior to the launching mechanism a tension retainer, as that the end result does not make
the rubber band shoot, but stops it from firing. The new firing mechanism is much more reliable
advantage of 4.3 , and an ideal mechanical advantage of 30. The efficiency of our machine is
4.3/30, or 0.1433The majority of the mechanical advantage comes from the wheel and axle, but
there is also a gear ratio of 3 which is contributing. The pulley and sprocket have a mechanical
advantage of 1. We only used them to change direction of energy not to increase distance of
energy.
On the first day we came up with the ideas and sketches. Second day we fine tuned the idea, built
the base, devised our gear system, and finished our wheel and axle. On the third day stabilised
the gear system and worked on the firing mechanism. The fourth day we redesigned the firing
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