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Exercise 1
Due Tuesday March 24, 2009
Pencil Transporter Gizmo
You have landed in an alternate universe where the people are small
and the landscape is strange. The rivers run with hydrochloric acid.
The surface of the planet is covered with cliffs that look like books
to you. The inhabitants use #2 pencils as their primary building
material.
When you landed, your craft destroyed the Gizmo they used to move
materials across their main river. You have agreed to make a new one
for them, but you have only string, one rubber band, and 4 square feet
of cardboard. You also have a large roll of scotch tape in your
landing craft that you can use to make the Gizmo.
You need to build a new Gizmo that transports pencils across the
river, which is one foot wide. Because the river is hydrochloric
acid, you need to keep the pencil at least 3 inches above the surface.
The inhabitants would like it if the pencils were deposited on the
other side of the river rather than having to be unloaded from the
Gizmo. For their original Gizmo, they had to unload the pencils one at
a time and they found it very time consuming.
You are in a bit of a hurry. If they don't have their Gizmo by
next Tuesday, they have threatened to sink your craft in one of their
rivers so that you will never be able to return home.
By Tuesday, you need to bring them your Gizmo and demonstrate that it
can transport at least one pencil across the river.
Rules: You will load the pencil into your Gizmo just before you
demonstrate your Gizmo (i.e. it can't be built into the Gizmo). The
only power you have is one rubber band.
- The inhabitants need to be able to use the Gizmo after you have
left for home. You should design and build a Gizmo that will last.
- Their building materials are unsharpened, full size, #2 pencils
with erasers.
- The inhabitants have a strong esthetic sense and they will not
accept an ugly Gizmo in their landscape.
- The inhabitants are small, and they are very protective of their
children (who are even smaller). So they will not accept a Gizmo
that catapults pencils or otherwise endangers their children.
Check the criteria for this
exercise before you start.
sfinger@ri.cmu.edu
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