Published on Sep 16, 2023
The objective: Our Project is called the Super Snow Squeezer. The simple machines inside our project are the inclined plane, the pulley and the wheel and axle. The purpose of our project is to squeeze snow.
Simple machines help us in our everyday life. Many people do not realize it, but simple machines are the objects that allow human beings to do things easier. All of them have something in common called a mechanical advantage, which grants us the ability to do/build/move things with ease. Before the invention of simple machines, life was not be so effortless. The following paragraphs are will give you a straightforward although fascinating definition of three of these tools.
A pulley is a wheel on an axle that is designed to support movement and change of direction of a cable or belt along its circumference. It looks like a rope encircling the circumference of a wheel, but in one structure. A pulley is simply a collection of one or more wheels over which you loop a rope to make it easier to lift things. Simple pulleys (single wheel and single rope) help by reversing the direction of your lifting force. There are also compound pulleys which decrease the force needed to lift a load. Compound pulleys use more than one simple pulley in order to provide a mechanical advantage of requiring less force.
An inclined plane is a flat supporting surface tilted at an angle, with one end higher than the other. Basically it is a slanted surface or ramp. The inclined plane uses the force of gravity, which takes effect on it by forcing the load to go down on this simple machine. Ramps also help by allowing things to go up by rolling instead of being carried/lifted. The inclined plane is used frequently by many people. It is used as an aid for raising or lowering a load. Some examples are water slides, snow covered hills, and ramps that dumps trucks use.
Friction is a force that resists the motion of an object passing along a surface. In simpler words a force that makes something stop. Friction is happening when you rub your hands together and you will see that they feel warm. This happens because when you rub your hands together you are creating kinetic energy. Kinetic energy turns into heat when friction is added. There are many different types of friction. You're probably thinking friction is pretty much a useless force, but if you think that, you’re wrong. Friction is the only force that makes your car or bike move. If it wasn’t for friction the wheels would just slip. Wheels work because they reduce friction.
Gravity is a force that gives weight. This force is mainly measured by the mass of an object. Also, the bigger the object is, and the closer you are to it the stronger gravitational pull. Different planets have different gravitational pulls. The planet with the strongest gravitational pull is Jupiter because of its massive size. If you drop a ball from a building for the first second it will fall at 9.8 meters per second. In the next second it will fall at 19.6 meters per second. Each second longer the ball is falling in will gain 9.8 more meters in speed. This happens because the approximation tells us that gravity at the surface of the Earth is approximately 9.8 meters per second.
This essay talks about some of the simple machines and forces. The wheel and axle is a great machine that helps things move on the ground without an inclined plane. The pulley is a simple machine that makes lifting objects easier. An inclined plane helps with lifting heavy objects from one platform to another platform. The force friction makes the wheel and axle work. Finally gravity is the one force keeping us on our planet. This is just a few of the simple machines and forces
Our invention is called the The Super Snow Squeezing Water Producing Machine. We want this machine to produce water by squeezing snow. When we invented it, we were thinking of the people in the Arctic and how bodies of water are usually frozen. This, if we gave it to them, could squeeze snow and they could have fresh water. This website has many different pieces of information about our tool. We hope you enjoy it.
Our hypothesis is that this invention will crush ice by putting some ice on a ramp, that will be lifted up with the ice, and then poured out into the ice crusher. Some nuts and bolts will crush the ice. The ice, which will then be water, will be collected in a container. It is supposed to have three simple machines, the pulley, the inclined plane, and the wheel and axle. We think that our machine will be very complex.
• Wood
• Nylon rope
• Plastic Container
• Six pulleys (Metal)
• 2 nuts and bolts
• Tool kit
• Screws
• Snow
• Tape
• 2 cranks
1. Cut two*four*fourteen wood into four equal three foot length pieces.
2. Make wooden frame.
3. Attach pulleys according to diagram.
4. Create ramp and container for the snow according to diagram
5. Cut rope long enough to fit around the rods, into the pulleys and on the front and back of the platform.
6. Thread rope around cranks and inside the pulleys.
7. Put tape on sides of ramp. Apply Vaseline on tape.
8. Drill hole in wood below the ramp.
9. Put the nuts and bolts inside the holes using hammer. Tape wrench on bolt on left side.
10. Apply Vaseline on tape on the platform and the inclined plane.
11. Put snow in container on platform.
12. Pull the platform up the ramp by turning the left crank counter clockwise.
13. Lift up the container to drop into the nuts and bolts by turning the right crank clockwise.
14. Collect water from container.
15. Turn the left crank clockwise and the right crank counter clockwise to go down the ramp.
16. Repeat steps 10 to 15 five to ten times
Our machine, the “Snow Squeezer” was HARD to build. One problem we had was finding out where to position all of the simple machines inside the wooden frame , another one of the problems we had was trying to figure out where we could find anything to squeeze snow. At first we thought of having gears to crush the ice. The thing with that was that we couldn’t figure out how to get a force and something strong enough to crush the ice, so we ended up with getting two nuts and bolts and changing the machine to a snow squeezer. A funny thing that happened was that we both hammered our finger! This is what happened during the building phase of our project.
Our hypothesis was not correct. We had many problems including having to change the project, things that we couldn’t find in stores. and many other things. The final machine was pretty complex. The "Snow Squeezer" is 3 feet tall and the frame is made out of wood. The compound machine, which produces water by squeezing snow, consists of three simple machines. They are the inclined plane, pulley, and the wheel and axle. We originally thought that we were going to make and ice crusher, but we couldn't get anything strong enough to crush it, so we changed it to a snow squeezer.The Snow Squeezer is big, bigger than all of the other Grade 5’s Science Fair Projects. All of the parts worked in our project. The weight of it is about 7 pounds. We used many tools to assist us in making our VSF project (Virtual Science Fair), such as a drill, hammer, and saw.The Snow Squeezer worked how we expected it to, and we had to also apply Vaseline kind of like lubricating a machine. This project has given us much experience and we hope that we do something similar again
Wikipedia. Contributors. "Pulley." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 7 Mar. 2014. Web.10 Mar. 2014.
Armentrout, Patricia. Simple devices: The Wheel. Printed in USA. The Rourke Press, 1997.
Woodford, Chris. “Pulleys.” EXPLAIN THAT STUFF! 9 March 2014. <www.explainthatstuff.com>
Wikipedia Contributors. "Inclined plane." Wikipedia,The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 28 Jan. 2014. Web. 10 Mar. 2014.
Armentrout, Patricia. Simple devices: The Inclined Plane. Printed in USA. The Rourke Press, 1997. Wikipedia Contributors. "Friction." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 23 Feb. 2014. Web 7 Mar. 2014
Wikipedia Contributors "Gravitation." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 2 Mar. 2014. Web. 7 Mar. 2014.