Blog 3: Channing Jake Nick Alex (group 8)

A) What changes did you have to do to your original design and why?

We haven't had any major design changes, except for the mechanism to release water. Our original plan was to have a small board which the lid of the water bottle pushes against until the board is knocked out of the way by the cue ball, releasing the water. This did not work because the board was very hard to move, it usually would stay attached to the water bottle, and it did not create enough force to push against the water, resulting in the water spilling onto the project. We switched out the water bottle, instead we have one with blue removable cap which we tied a string very tight around. On the other end of the string is a metal hanger which will provide enough force to yank the cap off, thus releasing the water. This piece of metal will be pushed off of the inclined plane by a wedge, which is hit by the cue ball.

B) What other challenges have you faced up to this point?

The construction of the water wheel has proved to be very challenging. The water wheel has to be very light in order for the water to be able to turn it, and materials like these are very hard to come by. This construction has delayed the building of our project and will likely be one of the more difficult issues faced in this project.

C) Outside of simple machines and energy transfers, discuss two other physics concepts in detail that are demonstrated in your project.

One concept demonstrated in our project is when the metal hanger is knocked off of the plane and suspends itself in the air to open the water bottle. This uses the physics concept of Newton's Second Law of Motion, or F=ma because due to the weight of the hanger and gravity, the force has to be a certain value. It cannot be too much, or else the cap will break or the string will slide off, however, if the force is not enough, the cap will not open up and the water will not flow out. In order to find the right weight we had to use this physics concept.

Another physics concept we use a lot in the project is Newton's First Law of Motion. One example of this occurs when we have the cue ball resting at the top of the inclined plane. It rests on the inclined plane due to the force pushing into the ball by the bucket, causing the ball to stay at rest. It is not until the bucket drops down that the cue ball moves, because the ball was acted upon by an outside force.