Applied Engineering Write-Up

Testing Date 10/1/2010

Documentation due 10/4/2010

Design Brief

The problem was to build a device that can launch an egg threw a hoop. The catch is the egg, as well as the device used to launch the egg, must both make it threw the hoop. The egg must remain intact throughout the launch.

-Guidelines include

-Everyone has to use the same brand of mousetrap

-75% of egg has to be seen

-Need to prove egg is unharmed within 30 seconds after testing

-Has to launch from a certain distance set by instructor

-All pieces of device must make it through the hoop

Info. Gathering

Sources of ideas are other group members and your own mind. We find out that weight is a crucial part of the design. We had to make some design changes to fall within this notion.

Solution Gathering

We came up with a few ideas that seemed plausible at first, but didn't work out as well as we thought they would. We played with whether or not the spring should be facing up or down. We eventually decided that the spring mechanism should be facing down.

Solution Selection

Our main idea that we stuck with through the experiment was to build a protective cage around the egg. Some of our concerns were that the device would be too heavy to be able to launch through the hoop with the egg. Thing pieces of wood and popsicle sticks were used in the construction. Hot glue was used to attach everything to each other.

Prototyping

We first had to cut all the pieces to size before preliminary assembly. Some more support was need to make the cage then what was previously though. That had to be accounted for and adjusted. We tested different ways and techniques on launching and setting the device up. We had to redesign the area the egg sat in because we hadn't taken that into account when we started. As we were running out of time we became increasingly concerned with our design. Although it wasn't 100% fool-proof, we decided to push forward with the design.

Testing

At the beginning of class we made sure the device was holding up ok and that the egg would fit properly. Our solution that we came