Fling Machine

Ms. L's Fling Machine

There are many ways to solve a problem. Sometimes it is as simple as applying a piece of duct tape. Other times it takes months or years for a product to progress from an idea into full-scale production. Work with a partner to design and build a device to launch a cotton ball and send it as far as possible. 

Your team may receive points for the following.

• Creativity: Up to 10 points for creativity in the design and use of materials.
• Teamwork: Up to 10 points for how well your team works together.
• Performance: Using the landing point of the cotton ball that was propelled the furthest from the launch device, 2 points for each inch between the device and the point at which the cotton ball lands.

Analyze the cotton ball travel distance data that you collected, the design of your machine, and your effectiveness as a team. If you had the opportunity to optimize your design, what would you do differently? How could you improve the effectiveness of your team? Given the constraints, how do you feel teams solved the problem of building a fling machine?

Team	Distance
Juan & Catherine	68.5"
Austyn & Craig	37"
Ben & Jake	-14.25"
Diana & Archit	110.25"
Ganesh & Vijay	35"
Ashab & Matt	180" / -19"
Gagan & Alvin	238"
Sukjit & Amijot	0"
Sasha & William	12.25"
Katie & Sonia	-.75"
Meera & Sachi	150"
Pallavi & Austin	56.5"
Ryan & Paras	372.25"

Unit Conversion

Modern civilization cannot exist without measurement systems. Measurements are everywhere, and you use them every day. Every time you buy gas, check the outside temperature, or step on a weight scale, measurements are used to represent a quantity. The abilities to conduct, record, and convert measurements are necessary to understand our technological world and to carry on the business of living. Engineers of all disciplines are constantly required to work with measurements of a variety of quantities – length, area, volume, mass, force, time, temperature, electric current, etc. It is often necessary to be able to express those measurements in different units.

Research, explore, and develop your own understanding of unit conversion. Then, work with a team to create a lesson that shares what you learned with the class. Your lesson should make us think and be fun!

Your lesson must cover:

• The purpose of unit conversion
• Conversion factor formula
• Conversion of units in both SI and US Systems
• How to write numbers in the SI System
• Dimensional analysis
• Unit prefixes
• Rules of exponents
• Precision versus accuracy
• Significant figures

Essential Question:

What would happen if engineers did not follow accepted dimensioning standards and guidelines but, instead, used their own individual dimensioning methods?

Color Theory

Designers choose specific colors to use in their design, and we call that a color scheme. Color theory is having the knowledge to mix colors and put colors together in a way that is right for your design. You will spend this week exploring colors all around you!

Research color schemes (monochromatic colors, analogous colors, complementary colors, triadic colors, and split-complementary) and color theory. Create a new blog post that addresses these points:

• define color scheme
• define and show examples of each type of color scheme
• monochromatic
• analogous
• complementary
• triadic
• split-complementary
•  define and show examples of 3 primary, 3 secondary, and 6 tertiary colors

Curious how we'll be using color next week? Check out this blog post from Modern Mechanix to get a preview.

Multi-View Sketching

You’ve practiced different techniques for sketching objects so that they appear to have a three-dimensional quality. These techniques are excellent for quickly communicating ideas to both technical and non-technical people. Those who make their living building ideas require a different type of drawing format. A multi-view sketch, also referred to as an orthographic projection sketch, is the standard sketch format used by engineers to communicate ideas to professionals in the building trades.

Study various objects to identify their surfaces for the top, front, and right side views. Share your multi-view drawings in a post.

Design Solution Concepts

Image Credit: Concept Sketches on Behance

This week you'll share a concept sketch for your design solution. This may be a sketch of a product, an environment, a person... it all depends on your solution! Be sure that your concept is solid before you start sketching. You should have done plenty of brainstorming and research to identify a solution that does not yet exist, and has plenty of pros to outweigh any cons. 

Please fill out this quick form, outlining your design solution, so that I can make sure you've got all the help you need to develop your solution.

More concept sketching inspiration here.

Concept Sketch Rubric

Line Work

Take a minute to reflect on your work from this week. Create a new post that includes photos of your line work from this week, and answer the following questions:

What emotions do lines communicate?
What feedback did your partner provide on your line work?

Then enter your feedback for your partner on the form here.

Product Improvement

What is it about the products you use everyday that you like? What causes you to want to buy a cell phone or a backpack? Is it the commercials or the appearance of the product? Whatever the reason, design plays a vital role in the creation and marketing of any product.

Procedure

This activity is designed to provide an introduction to design. As a team of two, you will brainstorm ways to enhance or change an everyday object so that nearly every consumer would want to purchase it.

1. Brainstorm for 15 minutes with your team to identify enhancements or changes that you would make to the item. Changes or enhancements could be anything; you are not limited by cost. 
2. Select ideas to enhance or change the item from the brainstorming list. 
3. Each member of the team should develop and sketch a potential change or enhancement to your product.
4. Your team will take five additional minutes to develop a justification for each potential change to the item.
5. Your team speaker will present your changes to the class. 

Process Statement

• What factors must be considered when changing or enhancing a design?
• Why is it important to document the brainstorming process?
• What is the purpose of sketching your ideas?
• What effective or ineffective techniques did the group speaker use to communicate your idea to the class?

Self as Designer

I chose to use a camera and Photoshop to create this image because those are tools that I am comfortable using. I would like to continue learning how to use Illustrator as a tool for making vector images.

These are the goals I hope to accomplish at the end of our time together:

• demonstrate an understanding of the elements and principles of design through the completion of complex projects and the development of problem solving skills
• communicate visually
• develop an understanding of scale, proportion and spatial relationships for the purpose of developing visual presentation and building aesthetic value

• ongoing portfolio of work

Bridge Design

Solving a problem is an amazingly creative process. Creativity can be messy. However, creativity can be channeled into a meaningful solution by using a structured design process. In this activity your team will design a solution to a problem using an engineering design process. You will document the process in your engineering notebook.

 

 

Procedure

1.    Follow the direction of the teacher while completing this activity.

2.    Use the design process learned earlier in this lesson. Document each step in your engineering notebook.

 

3.    Design and build a product that maximizes the distance between two blocks which are connected by a continuous route of paper. The product must meet the constraints below.

a.    The paper must form a continuous chain of connectivity from one block to another without touching the tabletop.

b.    Paper-to-paper linkage will be considered continuous.

c.    The two wooden blocks are ¾ in. wooden blocks.

d.    Both blocks are at table height.

e.    Card stock can be modified.

f.     Additional material can be used during construction, but not on the final product.

4.    The winning design meets the constraints above with the blocks farthest apart.

 

Process Statement:

1.    Why do you think brainstorming is helpful when solving a problem? 

2.    How did testing improve your design? 

3.    With respect to designing the solution of a problem, what are some important characteristics of a successful team?