Automata

At last, the infamous unit at the end of tech, automata. The self oparating machine that only requires a turn of the handle. My fist idea was going to be a herd of bulls that requireda catipilla mechanism inside the machine. Basically the whole class was intending to have the same idea, so I decided to do something else. I then came up with the idea of a bird. There would be one central piston at the top, being forced upward by an egg-shaped gear on a horizontal axel. This would be topped by a bird that elevates repeatingly alonsgside the egg shaped gear. The wings would be held in place to create a flying illusion. I will talk more in depth about the creation process tommorow.

Flashlights

Behold, a new project revealed today. Flashlights. Apperently, you are supposed to save these Thaiwanese kids who are trapped in a cave with falshlights made of PVC pipe. My brain was brewing with a soup of ideas, yet half of them were killed when our teacher said they needed to fit in a specific small area. When he also said that they need to be waterproof, all of my my original ideas were absolutly slaughtered. There was only one little spark left in my head;a small, wrist held flashlight. After much vigourus diagramming, I was going to put it up to the test. The first second that I showed my hard work to my teacher, he rejected it and said that it didn’t fit in the box. Arghh! I will report about the rest tomorrow.

Switches 2

Now it’s time to talk about the third switch. First of all, I had this interesting idea. There would be a piece of cardboard with a line cut inside it with a second flap of cardboard inside this line. You would have to pull back to create contact between the smaller flap and a wall of aluminum at the back, closing the circuit. There would also be a rubber band at the front creating resistance, so you did not have to pull the flap forward again when you desired to open the switch. Here is where it starts going sideways. The whole that I cut in the large piece of cardboard was not long enough for the flap to fully touch the back wall, so then I thought the back wall could rotate to the cardboard as the flap touches the bottom. I still shun myself for being such an idiot. The flap still can’t  touch the bottom because it was too small & short. Eventually, the final idea that came out of me was to use this new rotating lever to press down on the flap. People asked why there was a long hole in the cardboard and it was painful to lie to them. I hope that never happens again.