Brought to you by Oliver Hu, Ohad, and Kate
Our project was creating a magnetic levitating train. We were inspired by the MagLev, a company that builds magnetic levitating trains, one in Shanghai and one in Japan. We wanted to build this because if this technology is advanced it could reduce greenhouse gases from cars, trains, and other transportation that heavily leans on gas. It’s a good deal if we start to use magnetic levitating technology, because, first; it helps keep the Earth clean and healthy; second, since the Earth’s supply of natural gasoline is dwindling, this will be a good, clean alternative. But it is also has a bad side because it costs $60 million to make a mile of track. Most high speed train tracks cost $7.7 billion for 3,150 miles of track. Our objective was to make a fully functional train that could float, move, and hold things on its own. We realized that this was going to be hard after a week, so we changed our goal to make it float, move, and hold, but with help.
Over the course of the creation of our magnetic levitating train, we faced many challenges. One of them was that we couldn’t get our train to move. After a lot of trying, and failing, we made our train levitate. But still, it wouldn’t move! We tried placing magnets on the walls to force the train into the middle of the track where there would be less friction and the train would be able to move easier. However, the magnets on the bottom of our train were attracted to the sides of the magnets on the walls, so it just flipped over. Then, we had the idea to use wind power. We made two sails, one out of cloth and one out of plastic and attached it to the train, then put a fan behind the track and turned it on. But that didn’t work either; the train was too heavy and the sail just flapped while the train stayed in place. So then we tried to attach a magnet to the back of the train and push it with another magnet from behind. But that just pushed it off of the track. At that moment, when all hope was lost, when we were considering just not having it move at all, it hit us. Instead of push, we could use pull! We moved the magnet to the front of the train and then pulled it with a magnet. It wasn’t perfect, but it worked.
We learned that magnetic push isn’t always stronger than magnetic pull. We pulled our train with a magnet using magnetic pull instead of pushing it with repelling magnet. We also learned about new ways to move objects without using fossil fuels. We were brainstorming ideas of how to move our train. We thought of wind power, solar power, magnetic power, and gravity. First we brainstormed, thinking of what to do and how it would work. We eventually decided to move it through the power of magnets. Then we started gathering materials and making a rough draft. When the rough draft was done, we started creating the track and the train. Then we noticed all the problems and found some answers. First we found out that our train was too heavy to keep on the track. Our solution was to make a train out of cardboard instead of making it out of wood. We rebuilt our train and then we were done after a few more tests. Our future steps would be making an engine for the train and making a good way to keep the train on the track. We would want to keep on improving the track to make one of the first hyperloops. A hyperloop is going to be the fastest train going at speeds of around 700 mph. The hyperloop runs on a magnetic levitating track but also is in a vacuum. This makes even less friction and making higher speeds possible. For others doing the same project we would recommend making the lightest train possible because not all magnets can hold too much weight. Also ask others around for magnets because it can save lots of money. We got all of our magnets from Ms.Lockwood and made our project completely cost free. Remember to always get back up after every fail. You will never get anywhere if you stay in the same place.
Everybody hates traffic. We empathize with our users by finding a problem that people would love a solution to as well a problem for the climate. Our objective was to reduce the amount of cars on the street on a daily basis. We thought that public transportation was a good solution to that, but that too released carbon dioxide. We thought that if we could make a method of public transportation that did not release carbon dioxide, then the problem could potentially be solved. And thus came the idea of the magnetic levitating train. There are two magnetic levitating trains that exist, one in Japan and one in Shanghai, and they are among the fastest trains in the world. Our prototype did not work, when we tested it we realized that we needed walls to hold it in place. So we added walls, and found another thing wrong with it, and then we fixed that, and on and on until we had our final product.
Our project costed a total of zero dollars. This is because the lower school had done a similar project in the past, so Ms. Lockwood was happy to let us borrow the magnets and other necessary components that we needed. We used a couple of resources in the creation / brainstorming for our Maker Faire project. Here they are:
https://www.energy.gov/articles/how-maglev-works
https://hyperloop-one.com/hyperloop-explained
Over the course of the creation of our magnetic levitating train, we faced many challenges. One of them was that we couldn’t get our train to move. After a lot of trying, and failing, we made our train levitate. But still, it wouldn’t move! We tried placing magnets on the walls to force the train into the middle of the track where there would be less friction and the train would be able to move easier. However, the magnets on the bottom of our train were attracted to the sides of the magnets on the walls, so it just flipped over. Then, we had the idea to use wind power. We made two sails, one out of cloth and one out of plastic and attached it to the train, then put a fan behind the track and turned it on. But that didn’t work either; the train was too heavy and the sail just flapped while the train stayed in place. So then we tried to attach a magnet to the back of the train and push it with another magnet from behind. But that just pushed it off of the track. At that moment, when all hope was lost, when we were considering just not having it move at all, it hit us. Instead of push, we could use pull! We moved the magnet to the front of the train and then pulled it with a magnet. It wasn’t perfect, but it worked.
We learned that magnetic push isn’t always stronger than magnetic pull. We pulled our train with a magnet using magnetic pull instead of pushing it with repelling magnet. We also learned about new ways to move objects without using fossil fuels. We were brainstorming ideas of how to move our train. We thought of wind power, solar power, magnetic power, and gravity. First we brainstormed, thinking of what to do and how it would work. We eventually decided to move it through the power of magnets. Then we started gathering materials and making a rough draft. When the rough draft was done, we started creating the track and the train. Then we noticed all the problems and found some answers. First we found out that our train was too heavy to keep on the track. Our solution was to make a train out of cardboard instead of making it out of wood. We rebuilt our train and then we were done after a few more tests. Our future steps would be making an engine for the train and making a good way to keep the train on the track. We would want to keep on improving the track to make one of the first hyperloops. A hyperloop is going to be the fastest train going at speeds of around 700 mph. The hyperloop runs on a magnetic levitating track but also is in a vacuum. This makes even less friction and making higher speeds possible. For others doing the same project we would recommend making the lightest train possible because not all magnets can hold too much weight. Also ask others around for magnets because it can save lots of money. We got all of our magnets from Ms.Lockwood and made our project completely cost free. Remember to always get back up after every fail. You will never get anywhere if you stay in the same place.
Everybody hates traffic. We empathize with our users by finding a problem that people would love a solution to as well a problem for the climate. Our objective was to reduce the amount of cars on the street on a daily basis. We thought that public transportation was a good solution to that, but that too released carbon dioxide. We thought that if we could make a method of public transportation that did not release carbon dioxide, then the problem could potentially be solved. And thus came the idea of the magnetic levitating train. There are two magnetic levitating trains that exist, one in Japan and one in Shanghai, and they are among the fastest trains in the world. Our prototype did not work, when we tested it we realized that we needed walls to hold it in place. So we added walls, and found another thing wrong with it, and then we fixed that, and on and on until we had our final product.
Our project costed a total of zero dollars. This is because the lower school had done a similar project in the past, so Ms. Lockwood was happy to let us borrow the magnets and other necessary components that we needed. We used a couple of resources in the creation / brainstorming for our Maker Faire project. Here they are:
https://www.energy.gov/articles/how-maglev-works
https://hyperloop-one.com/hyperloop-explained
No comments:
Post a Comment