1. Photos of energy device.

2. Written description of your design including steps of energy transfer.

Description:
Our handrank was made up of a few things. First we needed a material that could contain all of
our parts including an LED, motor and gears. We decided to use LEGO since it could be easily
made and adjusted if needed. We then attached 6 gears to the sides of the walls using circular
bricks to hold in the axis of the gears. 1 gear was attached to the motor, and then two others
were used for rotating that one gear and the other 3 where used act as stoppers, ment to hold the
gears in place will adding little friction. The motor was placed around the bottom middle of the
box and had two wires soldered onto it. These to wires than ran up along the middle side
opposite of the gears until it reached and LED. The wires were then once again soldered on to
prevent disconnections and even reinforced with a thin LEGO brick being placed on top of them.

Energy Transfer:
Our bodies digest the food we eat by mixing it with fluids (acids and enzymes) in the stomach.
When the stomach digests food, the carbohydrates (sugars and starches) in the food breaks down
into another type of sugar, called glucose. The hydrochloric acid in the gastric juice breaks down
the food and the digestive enzymes split up the proteins.
When we eat something our stomach and small intestines absorb the glucose and then release it
into the bloodstream. Once in the bloodstream, glucose can be used immediately for energy or
stored in our bodies, to be used later.
For our Hand Crank, it is more of a quick flick along the gears than a spinning motion. This was
due to the fact the the crank would have to be large enough for us to hold yet small enough to be
efficient. The larger the crank was, the faster it would have to turn resulting in a quick energy
loss with little to no energy output. In the end there was no solution so we went with the quick
bursts of energy to light our small LED.

To obtain light in our small LED we had to run electricity through the semiconductor. When
applied the electrical current carried charged electrons to the other side where they dispersed it in
the form of light, then transporting them back to where they started.

Almond Raisins MnM Cashew

Initial 18.3 18 18.1 18.1

Temperature
(Celsius)

Max Temperature 20.2 NA 19.8 27.5

(Celsius)

Starting Weight 0.5 0.48 0.36 0.44

(Grams)

Final Weight 0.4 0.48 0.26 0.24

(Grams)

3. Modifications you made based on class experiments/data collected and WHY you made each
modification (science reasoning)

Some modifications that we made to our design included our motor types, and our gear
ratios. While researching motors, we looked for price, energy output, and size. We originally
wanted to test different motors but, were unable to since we couldn’t acquire all of the motors in
the time given. Due to this, we ended up with a smaller motor that cost us around $6. Next
came the gear ratios. Our original plan was to have a small gear with 8 prongs attached to the
axis of the motor. Next we would have a much larger gear attached to a seperate axis. The
reason for the second gear being larger is to have it for every one time we spin the larger gear, it
in turn spins the smaller gear by however many more times the gears our on the larger gear.
What we didn’t take into account however, was the larger that we made a wheel to attach to the
motor, the more energy we would need to put in to our device to activate the LED. Due to this
we weren’t able to have a continuous cranking mechanism, but instead a gear which the user
would flick to activate the LED which would stay lit for approximately the same amount of time
the flick lasted.
 For our food experiments, we had to modify our location due to some unseen hazards
occuring. The first setback was discovered while burning an almond inside our class.
Unfortunately for us, someone was allergic to nuts so we were instructed to move our experiment
outside. However, as soon as we stepped outside, it started to rain forcing us to move back into
the classroom. Do to this we had to choose another spot. We ended up moving to the hall way
which wasn’t ideal, but the only place left. This may have skewed our data since the wind
funneling through the hall could have messed with the fire that we were using to warm the water
which was used to calculate the potential energy for different foods.

4. Technical Specifications for your energy device including:

Definitions of energy sources manifested

You can tell that our energy was able to be transferred from food, through our body and
out into our machine since the LED turns on. The led only turns on when a fast motion is
applied to the gear so, when we moved the gear after eating, the energy transferred from us,
through the gears and motor, and into the light.

Measurement of energy output

Flick 1 1.157 Volts
Flick 2 1.046 Volts
Flick 3 0.872 Volts
Flick 4 1.120 Volts
Flick 5 0.835 Volts
Average: 1.006 Volts

Measurement of energy transfers

We tested four different types of foods to measure there energy transfer, almonds,
M&M’s, raisins, and cashews. Using the data collected from our lab we were able to determine
the amount of energy produced by these foods by burning them and seeing how a gram of waters
temperature increased and how much the mass of the food changed. The almonds increased the
water temperature by 1.9 degrees celsius and lost 0.1g of mass. This would give us 0.19 calories
for a part of an almond. Raisins didn’t light so our data was inconclusive. M&M’s increased the
waters temperature by 1.7 degrees celsius and also lost .1g of mass. This gave us 0.17 calories
for a part of M&M. The Cashew increased the waters temperature by 9.4 and lost 0.2g of mass.
This gives us 1.88 calories, by far the most effective.
Molecular Blueprint
5. Main selling points of your design

One main selling point of our design is the strength of it. Not only is the design made out
of patterned LEGO, but also soldered together to prevent the wires from disconnecting from the
LED and motor. Another benefit of our design is that it is safe to use. This takes into account
that the user doesn’t try to eat or step on the device. Due to ours being safe, the buyer wouldn’t
have to buy any outside safety equipment and not take any complicated safety precautions before
using it. This device could be used to communicate in morse code. To do this, the user could
spin the gear in timing with the patterns of the language to communicate with say a friend.