Project14 | Poll to Decide the January '19 Competition!

Perhaps we could do something with snow. I love it when it snows. Maybe it could be snowball making and throwing robots, or sledging robot.

Dubbie

I've designed a front panel for you, just add a moving coil galvanometer and a sensor (that might be the awkward bit). Avoids that situation where the snowball breaks up in the air or as it compresses in your hands you know it's like a ball of ice and gonna hurt.

Rod

Very good, although being a digital person I'd be looking for something a it easier to implement. Having just finished Sensors III maybe it could use a force sensor. If the snowball was a fixed size then the weight (mass?) would also represent the density. So, what is the density of a good snowball. Water is 1000 kg/m^3 and ice is about 920 kg/m^3 (how can you do superscripts in this editor?), so snow must be much less. When does snow density become unsuitable for snowballs? Or is it to do with 'wetness'? I'm not sure how you could measure wetness.

Maybe some sort of catapult could be used to launch the snowball or trebuchet, but this would have to have relatively slow initial acceleration to avoid the snowball disintegrated during launch.

Dubbie

Its a difficult problem indeed. Current temperature probably has a big factor but pervious freeze/thaw cycles fuses the snow into a lightweight ice structure (as opposed to solid ice produced by freezing water ) so would require a measurement of compressibility. An automated catapult would be fun and the trebuchet even more so

A new Project14 theme? "Measuring the Unmeasurable" - combining sensors, or making a novel sensor, to measure something that is normally very difficult. Any suggestions from the community on what 'cannot' be measured? Could be a property of a material or something very small/large/heavy tariq.ahmad

[Apologies in advance if already suggested - I know there has been lots of Project14 suggestions in the past]

Rod

Its a difficult problem indeed. Current temperature probably has a big factor but pervious freeze/thaw cycles fuses the snow into a lightweight ice structure (as opposed to solid ice produced by freezing water ) so would require a measurement of compressibility. An automated catapult would be fun and the trebuchet even more so

A new Project14 theme? "Measuring the Unmeasurable" - combining sensors, or making a novel sensor, to measure something that is normally very difficult. Any suggestions from the community on what 'cannot' be measured? Could be a property of a material or something very small/large/heavy tariq.ahmad

[Apologies in advance if already suggested - I know there has been lots of Project14 suggestions in the past]

Rod

That is a really intriguing theme  14rhb .  Would also be interested in ideas from the rest of the community on things that cannot be measured.  A Question of Scale is the upcoming theme and you could fit such a project within this theme.  Still,  would be interesting to see if the unmeasurable merits a separate theme treatment.

Oohh.... This seems intriguing and a bit difficult to do at the same time. In my mind "the Unmeasurable" is something like quantity of air in your house or inclosed box.. something which is very light like a feather but needs to be measured very precisely..

Its a head-scratcher...... I hope I am going in the right direction with this one atleast in terms of ideas

You mean like measuring the love quotient in a room full of people or the friendship factor?

How about the humor rating of a room?