1. Cody Johnson Jared Rowland Stephen Sherwood Nick Watson

3.  Our main goal was to create a contraption to activate a cat toy.  We acquired our materials mostly from the scrap pile or around the house.  We only purchased a roll of wire and wooden balls from a craft store.

4.  Starting off, a steel ball bearing rolls down a tube, hits a ramp and lands in a PVC pipe pivoting on an axis.  The PVC pipe flips downward, releasing the ball bearing into another pipe.  The ball bearing then strikes a wooden Newton’s Cradle ball that rests inside the pipe at the end.

5.  The energy is then transferred to a wooden ball resting on a piece of wood.  The wooden ball rolls down a ramp, then strikes a toy dump truck.  The toy truck rolls down the final ramp, striking two electrical connections, which then activates the cat toy.

7.  Projectile Motion Steel ball launching into PVC pipe  Center of Mass PVC pipe pivoting on a board  Collision Steel ball hitting wooden ball Wooden ball hitting truck  Conservation of Energy Newton’s Cradle

8.  This project took a lot longer than it should have.  We had a lot of problems with the toy dump truck going down ramp and turning on the cat toy.  This project was a lot of trial and error, but the outcome was neat.