Question: The question Lucas and I had for the building of the VSF project was how could we incorporate a pulley, a lever, a wheel and axle,screw, and gear in to a fun structure.

Hypothesis: Our hypothesis was that if we had a center clip fitted on to the gear, It would be easier for the the pulley to turn in one direction because the clip would stop the gear from turning two ways.

Materials: To build our structure we used plastic k'nex, plastic dolls, a rubber band, plastic pulley, a plastic gear, a wooden stick, three metal clips, pipe cleaner, and wooden supporters.

Method: This project started with us students coming up and designing a fun play structure made out of 2 or more simple machines. No motors were aloud. We drew non- detailed rough copy models of our structure. Our structure is separated into 2 sections, the "A" section and the "B" section. The "A" section was built like this: First the wooden stick slid through the middle hole of the gear , acting like the axle. Then out of a piece of wood I carved out a wooden seesaw. A supporting system was slid onto the axle, which acted like the fulcrum for the Seesaw. Off the center of the middle of the Seesaw were 2 clips which fit into the teeth of the gear. One of them pushed the gear up while the other one pushed the gear down. Another clip was put directly in the middle of the seesaw, this made sure that the gear only turned one way. The B section was made out of k'nex. The k'nex were built to form a Ferris Wheel. The little dolls were put into the seats of the Ferris Wheel. The plastic pulleys got a rubber band wrapped around them. One of the pulleys was attached into the center of the Ferris Wheel and the other one fit onto the other end of the stick. The pulley attached to the axle needed to be glued to the axle because the tension of the rubber band was causing it to turn the wrong way. The Pipe Cleaner was twirled to form screw shapes and were put under the seats of the See Saw to represent springs. After the structure was completed we made very detailed drawings of our structure completed with real measurements. Then we wrote paragraphs for each simple machine in our project and the way it benefits to our structure.

Results: The clip did work the way we thought it would. The center clip allowed the gear to turn one way, but not the other. Because of this, the pulley turned in one direction easily.

Application: We can turn a swinging force into a turning force.

Click here to listen to Elizabeth's rap on forces!