The Feicolink Elevator Parker Mink Travis Feigerle Melissa Cole Parker Mink Travis Feigerle Melissa Cole

Our Elevator

Design Concepts The process is started by pushing the golf ball off the elevated 2x4 into a cup that trips a lever. Once the lever is depressed, it releases a marble propelled by a compressed spring up a ramp to hit the first domino above the domino’s center of mass. This triggers the domino effect through our arrangement of dominoes until they set off the rat trap. The rat trap pulls the sponge stopper out of an inverted bottle to release the sand-gravel mixture. The sand lands in a weighted bucket to begin the movement of the weight.

Stored Energy To start, there is gravitational potential energy in the golf ball that will be converted to kinetic energy once it hits the cup. There is elastic potential energy in the spring propelling the ball that is converted to the marble’s kinetic energy. The marbles kinetic energy is carried through the dominoes. The rat trap has elastic potential energy in the two springs that power its motion. The sand has gravitational potential energy that is converted into kinetic energy that causes the weight to move.

Construction Issues We had to raise the height of the golf ball to have enough energy to release the lever. We had to add a ramp to make sure the marble hit the domino above the center of mass so it would fall over correctly. We had to change the compression of the spring. We had to convert from a mouse trap to a rat trap in order to have enough force to release the stopper. We had to change the type of bottle we used to meet height requirements. We had to melt the sides of the bottle to minimize sand build up.