11 April 1998

Project 3 Proposal for 39-245 Rapid Prototyping

Prepared by Jay McCormack Alan Tomko Afolabi Williams

Addressed to Professor S. Finger

Contents:

Introduction: This proposal is in response to a request by Professor Finger for games children can play while learning important engineering concepts to bolster their overall educational experience. This was identified as being a key issue for the members of the Rapid Prototyping: Spring 1998 Class to tackle. We have come up with the following activity described in greater detail in this report. We would like to solicit your feedback and ask that the listed resources in the proposal be allocated to us to aid us in this endeavor. We have described in this report our proposed activity and what children will learn from it, the parts we need to build with rapid prototyping technologies and the cost of buying different parts needed. We have also included project plan, assigning responsibilites and setting deadlines. Lastly, a guidance sheet for the instructor has been included

Objective: To engage children in middle school in a fun activity while learning engineering principles.

Activity: The children will roll ball bearings of varying sizes and weights down different hilly slopes (shown in the sketch attached). The children will also shoot the balls down a track to see how many of the hilly slopes the ball bearing can climb over.

Engineering Principle learned: The children will learn about the conservation of energy through energy being converted from potential energy to kinetic energy in 2 different ways: a. gravity and b. energy stored in the spring. They will also learn some concepts about momentum

Parts to be built: 6 hilly slopes: 3 varying the drop ramp will be built and 3 others with varying springs constants.

Rapid prototyping technology to be used: We will use LaserCamm to design the hilly slopes and the spring mechanism and they will be made of plexi-glass.

Project Plan, Responsibilities and Deadlines: Our plan is shown in the table below.

Tasks

Whom to be done by:Date to be done by: Design prototype from styrofoam and cardboard Alan, Jay, Labi 9th April, 1998 Buying springs and ball bearings Labi 13th April, 1998 Design of spring mechanism Alan 14th April, 1998 Design of slopes Alan, Jay, Labi 15th April, 1998 Send AutoCAD files to Stanford Jay 16th April, 1998 Receive completed prototypes Jay 22nd April, 1998

Budget: The total cost for the project is $20.00. This is a small amount for the value this activity will bring to children and teachers alike. A breakdown of the costs, is provided in the table below.

Parts needed: Cost ($) 4 different weights of ball bearings 10.00 3 spring of different elasticity 10.00 6 slopes from LaserCamm 00.00 Total 20.00

Conclusion: We hope that you find this proposal for our new activity as interesting as we do and will support us in our effort to make this a reality. Please contact Jay Mccormack, Alan Tomko or Labi Williams if you have any questions or require any additional information.