Week 13

This week, we have learned about Operating Principles and Mechanism Designs. 

Let’s talk about Operating Principles.

1. First of all, how things work based on Operating Principles❓❓❓

All device, apparatus and equipment are designed based on working principles that are either mechanical, electrical, chemical or magnetism.

For example, 👀

1. Q: What is the separation principle behind distillation? 

A: Differences in relative volatilities.

2. Q: How about solvent extraction (LLE)?

A: A solute can distribute itself in a certain ratio between two immiscible solvents.

Activity 1:❗❗❗

For the first activity, we are tasked to explain the working principles of our chemical product, which is a Cleanliness Indicator.

Operating Principles of Cleanliness Indicator:

The cleanliness indicator uses the chemical reaction of an enzyme and samples to function, as well as measuring the scattering of light shined on the sample. To enhance the speed of operation and ease of use, a gear system to position and lock in place the samples, much like a DVD player, can be incorporated.

2. Next up, we learned about the Mechanism Designs.

In order for the identified operating principle to work efficiently, mechanical movements are often required.

Using the Extraction Column as an example.

Difference of Mechanism in context of Chemistry and in Engineering:

In Chemistry	In Engineering
Fundamental chemical processes involved in or responsible for an action, reaction or other natural phenomenon.	Refers to the combination of rigid or resistant bodies, formed and connected so that they move with definite relative motions with respect to one another. In another word, it is something that transforms forces and movement into a desired set of output forces and movement.

There are 6 Essential Mechanism in functional prototypes which are:

1. Actuators

2. Cams

3. Gears

4. Lever

5. Ratchets

6. Springs

Activity 2:❗❗

For this activity, we are tasked to design a Ping Pong (table tennis) Ball launcher that can shoot and reload ping pong balls.

Below are the criteria for the Ping Pong Ball Launcher:

• The device should be able to hold at least 5 balls

• Device should propel the ball with stored energy

• Mechanism can be fully automatic, semi automatic or fully manual.

We also need to include sketches, short notes and a clear description of the propulsion and reloading mechanisms for our design.

Below is our group's sketches for ping pong launcher:

Propulsion Principle of the Ping Pong Launcher:

The toy uses spring as the energy storage mechanism to propel the ping pong ball. The user manually compress the spring by pulling the spring compressor located on top of the launcher. A lever is used to hold the compressed spring in placed. When the lever is released, the spring will propel the ping pong ball. When the trigger is pulled, a mechanism will activate that pushes up the firing lock, unblocking the spring compressor which will cause the spring to be release its potential energy and slam the firing pin into the ping pong launching it out of the gun.

Ball Loading:

After the ping pong ball is launched, the spring in the magazine pushes the ping pong up to the launcher. Magazine can be pulled out from the gun and reload by manually pushing the ball into the magazine but there is a closing top to prevent the ball from bouncing out by the spring. The ball will move up due the stored energy in the spring after a ping pong is shot.

And that is the end of our week 13's tutorial session!!!