My Unscripted Midterm Presentation for Mechanisms
It was show-time today and all ideas fell apart due to lack of parts and maybe poorer planning. First idea was to use springs to create a mini bungee, have a little person in the device then calculate the trajectory using an accelerometer.
As you can see from the sketch there should be two tension springs attached to a base. The base is then attached to a hook release system, which when pressed releases the base and catapults the man in the air. This motion is recorded via the accelerometer and the numbers mapped in the computer using Arduino. Of course things did not turn out this way. First no accelerometer, the springs I got became stretched out beyond use and I was missing other parts. Poor planning one would say. Hope not to make this mistake again but hope to accomplish this. It would be interesting to try different weighted objects and calculate and graft its trajectory.
Now for class I changed my idea and decided to try to generate electric flux by pulling the spring over a metal rod which was powered with 5 volts. The concept was to measure ones pulling force and represent it as force a against resistance - if you can imagine.
Anyway, I forgot one important thing. In order to create an eletomegnetic flux I need to move the spring very fast, even faster than than my hands could move. This motioned while well intentioned triggered another concept most would seem very inappropriate for class. I had a light attached to the output of the rod and also had the numeric values printed serially in Aduino environment. As you can see the light did not dim with movement, instead turned on and off. This was due to just basic contact between the pole and the spring. Well, this prompted another application for such device, one old and appropriate. A Morse code generator.