THE AMAZING MAZE BY: EVAN WARNER TYLER BOLTON MATT LANE BEN GASTINEAU CHRIS SORRELLS DECEMBER 3, 2008
Abstract Paragraph Hello there, we are team The Amazing Race. Our wonderful team of hard workers includes Evan Warner, Tyler Bolton, Matt Lane, Ben Gastineau, and Chris Sorrells. In our last project as Engineering Fundamentals 151 students we made a roller coaster. Our percentage on the time made the run in fifteen or plus or minus two seconds was ninety-five percent. Our roller coaster fell in the guidelines set by the engineering professors. The name of our project was established because the amount of turnarounds (zigzags) the ball makes. Our teams roller coaster worked efficiently by working correctly almost every time.
Introduction In our final project of the semester, a project that would sum of the entire EF 151 physics course, we was asked to make a roller coaster that would last as close to as possible fifteen seconds and that would cost less than or around forty dollars. This roller coaster was loosely defined so the students basic had the empowerment to make it into whatever they wanted. The roller coaster was constrained somewhat by the dimensions which was 0.5 meter * 0.5 meter * 0.5 meter box. Your project could be bigger but it must be able to fold up to fit into the box. Each team was asked to make a power point presentation along with a written report to supplement our roller coaster. Design Process Our team thought long and hard about what we thought would be a good project that would be manageable and fun for our experience as freshman majoring in engineering. We thought of several different concepts of a project, which several consisted of loops and jumps. One of the team members even thought it would be fun to shoot the ball thru a hoop of flames from a real fire but it was brought down by Professor Will Schleter. Another one was that we would put tubing around a couple of boards and have a ball go down it, this was our initial roller coaster that we turned in at class. That project didn t last too long after we thought about it. We kept thinking up very good ideas as a team but the time constraints hurt us because it was almost Thanksgiving break and all the team was going back to their hometowns to spend Thanksgiving with their families. So the team had to choose a design fast or we would be in trouble as a group
without a project. We then decided with break coming closer that a contraption that consisted of several zigzags would be the best for our roller coaster. One problem that our team thought about was how level the floor was in Estabrook because of the complications of the slopes and the cracks along the edges of the shelves. We solved this problem by testing the project in the floor of Estabrook which then caused another problem, slippery floor that had a little amount of friction to keep our coaster up, that our team never thought of because of the friction of carpet on the ground when we tested the roller coaster. We tightened up our support on the coaster even more to prevent it from sliding out from the initial position of the roller coaster. mgh = 1/2mv^2 +mgy (i.e. From textbook) (7-9) Device This formula would be used in our calculations. We made it in a box out of wood that was seventeen inches by seventeen inches by three inches. We added a support to hold up the box out of compressed wood since we put two wood screws in the bottom to make the box angled back so that the ball wouldn t fall out. We had pieces of paper on each shelve where the ball dropped down so that the ball wouldn t get stuck in the corners and plus it helped the ball keep moving. We finished our device the night before the deadline in class with the roller coaster having seven shelves that had a slight slope to enable the ball to roll down to the next shelf. Our box shaped coaster had a opening in the top of it where a ball could be dropped into the first shelf. On the last shelf we had a piece of gum that would be position at the end of the shelf so that the ball would hit it and stick. This helped our time by not allowing the
ball to bounce back off the wall of the inside of the box. The roller coaster had to be on close to level ground to work because the ball would get stuck against the wall or corner of the shelves. The wood used for the back and sides and the compressed wood cost us about ten dollars (a cheap price for all college students that don t have a steady income). All the other materials: plain paper, the ball, scotch tape, gum were not purchased due to the fact that we had them already and was willingly to use them in our project. The roller coaster worked in all of our pre-tests of it. Each run would last from thirteen seconds to nineteen seconds depending on how much each of the papers were angled on each shelve. Figure Results
Conclusion The calculations and equations are in the Appendix. Our project was successful every time we tested it in practice. The main problem we had encountered with the project was that the ground was not level and had slick flooring. We had few trouble areas that we just were able to fix like the angle of paper. If we had something differently, we would have made sure that our project worked better on slick flooring and not having to use a test to find out the problem. If we had more time, we would have been able to achieve a better roller coaster. One of the major things we learned through this project is that theoretical and actual analyses are two very different things. Also, we learned that not to count on the flooring in Estabrook being level. Appendix