My partner and I initially worked through the gears handout to learn the relationship between gear ratios, speed, and torque. Then we disassembled our gearbox to start testing out what would work in an actual car.
For our first design, we hoped to move the 1 kg weight by simply pushing it along with a two-wheeled car. We struggled to find a working gear ratio for this model, but were soon informed that our car must actually carry the weight.
For our first design, we hoped to move the 1 kg weight by simply pushing it along with a two-wheeled car. We struggled to find a working gear ratio for this model, but were soon informed that our car must actually carry the weight.
We then thought about driving both axles with the motor; however, this design proved less efficient than a single-axle drive, because of gear-train complications that greatly increased friction. Around this time our professor showed us the rubber band pulley wheel to attach to the motor, which greatly simplified our gear train.
We didn't get much farther than this design the first day--we tried to build a single-axle-drive gear train with the rubber band pulley wheel, but found it was difficult to align the motor and pulley wheel to prevent the motor from falling into the car and breaking everything. The class ended with my partner and me the proud designers of nothing but a pile of disassembling Legos. (To be fair, this was an excellent demonstration of torque.)
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