Ready, Set, Build!

Last week was all about learning to build with Lego's--making something strong and learning how motion can be controlled.

The first challenge (which I missed and turned in late due to a little bug called STREPP) was to build a box out of Legos that can fall 3 meters with Lego weights inside it and not totally fall apart.
The idea behind this is linking special Legos that have holes in the middle of them with little plastic bolts. The trick is the spacing of the Legos--you have to make sure everything is perfectly aligned so the bolts will link well.
Most people did this by creating a standard box, or a doubly layered box, out of Legos and reinforcing the outside by placing one long piece perpendicular to the rest and linking it to the box with bolts. I did this and built the 'Bumble Bee!'
The Bumble Bee's strength comes from mostly bolts that hold three Lego pieces and three long plastic sticks that cross the box.

This is one of my two failed tries:

And this was final, successful try!

And this is a picture of me with my strong Bumble Bee.

The second challenge involved gears and simple motors. We learned about torque (the ease of moving something in a circle) and speed, and how gearing influences this.
So--there are two kinds of gears we use. A teeny one, with a multiplication value of 1x, a larger one with a value of 3x, and an extra large one with the value of 5x. As we link these up, their values multiply up. As more are linked, the torque increases and the speed decreases--because it takes more spins to turn the last wheel as more wheels are added. This makes the machine slower, but it makes it stronger and stall less.
The real challenge was to make a derby racing car that could cross 3m with a 1 kg weight as quickly as possible. So we need to find the perfect balance between torque and speed, a great lesson in engineering. Do Camille (new partner!) and I want to make a dependable car, or a car that drives in bursts?
Our first car had a gear total of 45, and crossed 3m in 14 seconds. By the end of class, we had a gear total of 15 and 3m under 9 seconds. This is a picture of me and Sweeney Todd (because he will be the violent death of the other cars, or me if he won't work). I will soon make him redder, do not fear.

To be continued and updated as we learn more.
Later, y'all!
-Lucia