Sumo Bot Blog

The project requirements were to create a car that can be powered by a fixed brain box that was provided. We used direct drive to power our wheels. We also used a longer wheel base to provide more power to the vehicle. RDJ won with a time of 51 seconds. They had a lot of space in between the two back wheels to provide power and precision turning. The wheel base was also small, the distance between the back and front wheels were small which made it have a good turning radius. If we could redesign, I would decrease the wheel base and increase the traction. I also would decrease the amount of weight that our car had.

Optical Illusion and Angular Momentum Challenge

We created a yo-yo and two spinning tops, all with optical illusions on them. The yo-yo functions perfectly, and it creates an impressive optical illusion. The spinning top on the right creates a blue-orange mix, while the left top creates a grey-red illusion in the middle.

We decided to create objects that spun to create angular momentum, and created different optical illusions. The only minor difficulties that occurred were trying to get the top to spin as best as it could, and also we had to separate the two circles in the yo-yo so it could function correctly.

If we had more time we would find better string and cut our circle out of stronger material so it would last longer, and spin more smooth. We would also make the spinning top column out of either plastic or a metal so its more durable and could spin longer.

Fastner Blog

The main point of this lab was to show how you can use many different objects to fasten objects. My group had the first choice and chose pegs as our fastner. We came up with the idea of creating a pyramid so we did that by using small wooden pegs to connect our blocks. We combined 3 square levels by 4 vertical pegs so that the pyramid could get smaller as it went up. I feel that we did that successfully because the pyramid is free-standing and if there was one thing that i would do to fix it that would be re-adjusting the lengths of the vertical pegs so they stood up straight, rather than the crooked way that they came out.