The Grand Salute

Luis Guzman

Matt Pruitt

Eddie Novak

The Purpose

To provide a viable substitute for an absent Honor Guard member so that the American Flag can be raised in the professional and precise manner it demands. Hoorah!

Overview of Device

Elevated ball Pulley system Cloth launcher Tubes to see-saw Car on track Mousetrap Raising of the flag

How it Works –Elevated ball

Drop a small toy football from rest down a PVC pipe with a 45 degree angle.

The ball is then directed to a suspended Styrofoam cup where it has it’s final kinetic energy.

How it Works – Pulley system

The pulley system suspends two Styrofoam cups

The first cup on the right now holds the toy football. The football takes the pulley’s out of equilibrium and tilts the second cup on the left releasing a golf ball, turning the potential energy into kinetic.

How it Works – Cloth launcher

The golf ball falls on the cloth with kinetic energy and stretches the cloth so that it transfers it’s energy by making a ramp for the ping pong ball to slide down

The ball’s potential turns kinetic as it goes down the large PVC pipe with a foam cup on top towards the see-saw

How it Works – Car on track The ball goes through the PVC pipe and is guided

into a half foam cup connected to a see-saw. The kinetic energy of the ping pong ball pushes the

other end of the see-saw up which hits the tail end of the car which releases the cars potential energy and starts it moving along the track.

Mousetrap

Gravity and height of the track helps it down the track to get to the next transfer.

The mouse trap is triggered when the car transfers it’s kinetic energy to the string connected to it and the trap raises the flag with it’s stored potential energy.

Demonstration: Present ARMS!

Conclusions

We used four energy conversions to raise the flag

The project was successful and fun The structure for energy transfer is

very inefficient, at least at this scale.