Simple Machines

We had to create 4 simple machines and try to get the best Ima and percent effeciency that we could from those four machines.  We had to create the pulley, the inclined plane, the lever and the wheel and axel.  The objective was to put a box of nails on the machines and see which group  could get the highest amout of Ima and percent efficiency.

         Pulley (Joe Scotto)                                                                                                         Lever (Jason Solomon)


                                                
Inclined Plane (Jason Solomon)                                                   Wheel and axel (Joe Scotto)

My group came in dead last for almost every test except for one.  Our inclined plane was the only one that did not finish in last.  I was not there for most of the building and the testing.  So I was unable to accomplish much on any of these projects.   Noah's group came in first.  They ended up having the highest effiency and mechanical advantage. 

The measurments on our machines were not corrected and completely off.  This cause us not to get to much effeciency from our machines.  This caused them to not do as good as the other groups.  Our pulley also feel apart before the testing so we couldn't even see how well we had done on that.  If we were to do this again, we would need to do the measurments differently.  If we had gotten them correct it would have been a major differnece in our results.  I think with a little bit more practice we will be able to make simple machines to there full ability. 

Build a compound machine



For our machine we used our wheel and axel and our lever and combined them.  We did not have a pulley becuase it was destroyed in a tragic accident.  We hooked the lever up to the wheel and axel so that pulled the lever up.  We used this idea to try and get as much Ima as possible since we did not have a pulley. 

We had tested this compound machine twice.  The first we had gotten a score of 14 Ima.  Which would have been in the C range of our grading system.  We decided that if we used a smaller dial on the wheel and axel it would help the compound machine gain more Ima.  So we then did that and that lead to us getting up to 28 Ima which got us into the B+ range.  Our methods wored but not as well as others.  Another group ended up getting a Ima of 247.  Which was a lot better then ares.  One of our biggest problems was not having the pulley.  It could have increased out machine significantly.

The most difficult thing to grasp was how to inhance the Ima of our machine since we did not have the pulley.  I wasn't surprised by that much during the process of making the machine.  In future projects we can being more careful with our machines and make sure they don't fall apart.  If we are able to keep things together I believe we will do better.  We can use things such as using a smaller dial to create a greater Ima in later projects.