Tom’s Engineering Project

Tom’s physics class has been working on an engineering project. They need to build a machine which will put 11 corks into a box. There are a bunch of rules about size and placement. Tomorrow morning, the machines all get impounded, so tonight was his last trial run. The machine looks like this.

This 9 volt battery and switch (notice the crossover for reverse gear) …

… is connected to two motors which drive this shaft from opposite ends.

The shaft winds up a string which leads up this tower …

… and pulls on this two part ramp.

The corks have all been been placed at the end of the ramp.

Once the ramp has been lifted up, the corks all go rolling down and into the box. The result looks like this:

Isn’t that neat? Thursday night it will run in competition, and we’ll see how it does.