Bicycle Ice Cream

Bicycream 

By: Margaux, Ermie and Theo

           For BPC’s Maker Faire, 2019, our group decided to base our project around making ice cream while biking in place. Our project also incorporated the idea of the motivating people to work by having a sweet end goal in mind; the only way to obtain the reward of your exercising, the ice cream, is to bike and actually churn the ice cream by cycling. We decided to do this project because some people won’t exercise without a reward,or are lazy and need a way to motivate themselves. Now, we have found a solution to this problem: Ice cream. We discovered a way for someone to make ice cream while biking, and the only way to obtain this cool, refreshing treat is to go on a bike ride in your house while binging on your favorite Netflix show or around the park while enjoying the fresh air. 
First, we envisioned a frame around the back wheel with a cylindrical box attached in the middle. The power would be generated by the back wheel. Since the container was touching the wheel while it spun, the container, in contact with the wheel, would spin as well. We didn’t prototype this idea, which was a mistake that ultimately made it harder to complete our finished project, but we did brainstorm for quite some time and figured out different ways to make it work.

           To assemble all the pieces, we went to Ace Hardware to get a PVC cross-connector. We put the bike head through the cross and attached two pieces of PVC on either side of the seat. Then, we put a T-connector on both ends of the PVC so we could add two new longer pieces of PVC that  extended all the way and rested near the back wheel. Finally, we attached the container to these pipes by drilling holes into either end sticking a wooden dowel through the lid and bottom. The dowel continued into the PVC pipes that were already drilled with holes. With the box in between the pipes, it rested on the wheel and spun with it. 
This is what it looks like:

We were inspired to do this project because we had immediately known that we wanted to do something centered around ice cream, but were unsure of what. One of our group members had previously made ice cream in plastic bags and found it to be successful and easier than using an ice cream machine. We needed a simple and portable way to make it at school,  so we thought of homemade ice cream in plastic bags. After presenting our ideas to the teacher, we decided that, even though it was a good project, we needed more. With that, we turned it into bicycle ice cream! The objective our our new-formed plan was to motivate people to exercise by giving them a reward to work for. They have to earn it; if they don’t pedal, there is no ice cream. We were stuck and couldn’t find anything to do for Maker Faire but our brilliant, smart, ingenious, creative science teacher, Ms. Mytko suggested we do something very "makery," like a thing that was powered by a bike. We also wanted to do something with ice cream so we combined the two ideas and created our project.

           A challenge that we faced was getting the PVC to stay in place. As you can see in the photo above,  a member of our group is holding the PVC pipes so that they would stay in place, but when no one was holding them it would slide off the wheel and bump around, therefore causing it to not turn as smoothly when we were pedaling. To solve this problem a member in another group suggested that we use wire and attach it to the bike itself, and after we tried this, it started to work a lot better. As a result, the ice cream did not slide around as much, and overall came out a better consistency. At first, I was reluctant because I wanted to base the project off of the bike exclusively. Eventually, we did it with the help of the other group members. It stayed in place pretty well even though we had to use the borrowed item to do so.

         We learned many things on the way to creating our final, finished project. Among those many, the ones that stand out the most are adaptability, making things up on the fly, and that even if you mess up, there is always a way to fix it or make it better. We learned adaptability because our project started out as one simple thing that gradually changed, a lot at first, and then gradually over the course of our project. We learned that making up thing whilst in the middle of doing something, or figuring out that something doesn’t work, came in handy when we couldn’t get the container to stay put on top of the wheel. In the very beginning of our process, when we were drilling holes into the PVC pipes, we would keep either making them too big or too small. Whenever that happened, we would just start over, either on a new pipe or on the opposite end. These are skills that other people attempting to do similar projects would be better off learning earlier on.

           If we had more time to complete the project, since we had a pretty good basic start to it, I think we would have just finessed it more, made it run more smoothly, and made larger quantities of ice cream to share with everybody. Our bike-powered ice cream machine worked, but it was only the base platform of what we could accomplish.

         The estimated cost we have of our project is very low. Most of the materials we used we found in and around our school, or people had at home already and were fine with bringing them in for use. The only things people in our group purchased was a four-way PVC pipe connector, purchased at Ace Hardware for around $5, and a half gallon of half n’ half, purchased also for $5. Our total project cost was $10. The only outside resource we really used to base our ideas off of, a video as well as a website, was a great example of someone using bicycle ice cream for theirs, as well as other people’s benefits. They made ice cream on a hot, sunny summer day, went for a nice relaxing bike ride, and shared some homemade ice cream with friends and strangers. It was also just a great project in general, and surely inspire other makers to do the same and more.     
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbKHoCDwIOg

Re Designing the Black Pine Circle School Garden's Watering System By: Maxime C and Kea M

Redesigning the Black Pine Circle School Garden Watering System

Estimated Cost of Project:

1 garden bed: $20

5 garden beds: $30

For the Black Pine Circle Annual Maker Faire, we designed and built a garden watering system. Our project
involved trying to improve the way our BPC school garden was being watered. It started on the basis of realizing
the garden wasn’t always being watered enough. We soon realized that this was because the students and
teachers didn’t have time to do it, and most folks didn’t know how much water each plant needed. In an attempt
to help water the garden correctly and thoroughly, we developed a system targeting each of these problems.                                                                                                

In the beginning, we were thinking of using an automated motorized pump to pump water through tubes to the
plants. With this design, we ran into problems almost as soon as we started. We realized that it would be very
difficult to set up a pump to water the plants, because we didn’t have a reliable source of electricity outside.
Without electricity, we had to make a system that used some sort of water tank that branched out into separate
tubes planted on spots near trees or plants in need of water. Thus, to get around our time and material
constraints, we decided to use a water bottle, a syringe, and a few tubes to water the garden.

First, we screwed a syringe to a water bottle; we used this to create the pressure that would pump the water
out our bottle into the tubes. Then, we tested it’s watering capabilities by placing each tube near a plant. We
started pumping. The pressure kept the water going, and we kept pumping the water, and watering the garden.

Throughout this process, we learned many things. The first is that, for anyone who might try this project,
it is always better to make a thorough model on paper before actually building a physical model. This gives
you the option for error without the risk of breaking a final model while trying to improve it. Another thing
that we learned that really interested both of us was the Siphon Principle of the flow of liquid through tubes.
This principle dictates that liquid can be pulled uphill if the end of the tube is lower than the start, much like this:

Unfortunately, this projected was a prototype, and was scaled down to a much smaller size. In reality, it would
be cool to set up a similar plant-watering system that had a similar, but more durable, metal tank that branched
through tubes to water various plants. Except: the tank would be a lot bigger, the tubing would be longer, and we
would use an automated valve system to minimize human labor. Altogether, we hope this project can have a
meaningful impact on the BPC garden, as well as others.

To Buy Materials:

1. Tubing
2. Syringe

Resources:

1. https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/
2. https://www.achooallergy.com/learning/

Tilda and Amelia's 2019 Maker Fair Blog Post

Our project was to make a flashlight in an Altoids tin. We wanted to learn about circuits and how they work. Our inspiration for our project was to make an accessible light source. One challenge we had was that we were new to circuits and needed to learn about them to understand our project. We learned about how circuits work. It took us a long time to figure everything out so if we did this a second time it would not take as much time. If we had more time we would try to make the flashlight, solar powered or make it easy to recharge the battery on a solar panel, so we could use a more sustainable energy source. Some advice we would give to others is to really research what you are doing before you get too far in. An estimated cost of our project if we had to buy everything except for the tools, would be about 10 dollars. This is a really cheap project that anyone can do if you have the knowledge, tools, and time. This is the tutorial we used. It did not explain how to solder the circuit so we had to get help.

Foosball Stick Project - Adam and Oliver B.

Adam E. Oliver B. 

5/30/2019

Foosball stick Project

We have always liked playing Foosball at recess and lunch; unfortunately one of the Foosball Tables’ defenders broke. This was upsetting because it made the game very unbalanced and one sided, ruining a lot of the fun. We decided to take on this project because it resonates to us. So we decided to fix the table by making a new defender stick. We knew we would mess up along the way but we didn’t care because no matter how much worse the new defenders were then the old ones they would still better than nothing.

We didn’t need to design the stick itself very much but we needed to decide and design what we could do with the constraints that we have, these being 5 hours and $25. We decided that the best materials we could use were 2 pieces of 2 by 4, a steel rod for $8(this was the only piece that wasn’t already supplied), and a steel pipe. We also had to think about how we would get the stick in to the table, we couldn’t do anything too big because then we wouldn’t be able to slide it into the table. With these in mind we ended up making it nearly identical to the other sticks. Our stick didn’t have the springs on the ends like the others and ours wasn’t as balanced but ours worked fine.

One challenge we faced over the course of the project was the rubber handle that Adam brought from home was about ¼ inch to thin. We didn’t know how to fix it and the best alternative would be duct tape which wouldn’t be nearly as fun. We ended up trying to drill into it and sand it down until we finally found a tool that was meant to be used for this type of problem, unfortunately it was too small but we used it anyways. It was a sort of sharp bladed metal rasp and we ended up widening the opening with and hammering in the rod the rest of the way to make sure it didn’t come off from lack of friction.



In the process of making the stick we learned how to overcome challenges, learned that things don’t have to be perfect to be functional, and learned that working in a partnership helps you get work done faster. We liked the challenges and triumphs that come with bigger projects like these. If we had more time we probably would re glue the characters (we messed up once) to hold them better then just taping them. And we would most likely figure out a better way to glue the stick into the table. I would say if your looking to have some fun while doing the project do what we did, design your own stick and make it from scratch, but if you're looking for optimal functionality you should probably get a manufactured replacement.

Foosball defender stick in place

Homemade organic mason jar ice cream

          6B- Ice Cream in a Mason Jar 

          By Sadie Burroughs and Amaya Heard

At the beginning of this project, we knew we wanted to make a sweet. Ice cream sounded like a fun, easy dessert that we both wanted to try making. We both knew that the summer was coming which inspired us to make something cold and sweet, like ice cream. At first, we wanted to make an ice cream machine out of cardboard, which would be our main focus. Ms. Hill said that it would be better to focus on the ice cream rather than the machine, so we decided to just make the ice cream instead. We also decided to make the ice cream in mason jars as a substitute for plastic bags. Replacing plastic bags with mason jars helps reduce plastic usage. We were going to make one ice cream vegan, and the other normal. We wanted to make the vegan ice cream so we were not using animal products. Many times, animals are not treated humanely, and we wanted to not support those businesses. We also thought that by making your own ice cream, it wouldn't cost as much as buying ice cream from a store. We estimated that the price for the ingredients was about $5-10. If we made our own ice cream, we would not be spending money on store bought ice cream in wasteful plastic.

We started off thinking we wanted to make vegan and non vegan ice cream. The ice creams would be flavored vanilla and strawberry. Sadie brought the ingredients which included heavy cream, coconut milk, and sprinkles. Black Pine Circle had sugar, vanilla extract, and mason jars. When we were trying to make the vegan ice cream, we made a mistake by only using the coconut cream and not the coconut milk. This caused it to freeze in an iceball. On the other hand, the heavy cream in the normal ice cream worked very well. We decided to make another vegan ice cream with the coconut cream and the coconut milk, but it was not thick enough. We forgot all about the strawberry ice cream, so we decided to make only vanilla. We found chocolate syrup in the fridge and decided to put chocolate in the ice cream. We tried to make vegan ice cream once more with soy milk, but it did not work out and wasn't as thick as the heavy cream ice cream, and tasted very bad. We made the ice cream by shaking all the ingredients together in a mason jar, and after five minutes, it was just like whipped cream. Then we put it in the freezer for three hours. After this, it was the consistency of normal ice cream.

I think that our project worked really well, but there are a few things that could have made it better. At first, we wanted to make vegan ice cream, but this did not work because we couldn't use heavy cream, which was a main ingredient. The alternatives did not work. An experiment I want to try in the future, is to get vegan whipped cream and put it in the freezer and see if it would turn out like the non vegan ice cream. Next time we want to make some ice cream that is vegan, maybe we should look up a good vegan recipe, instead on changing a non vegan recipe. The lesson that we learned is when you are making a new food, always make sure that you are following the recipe. Our advice for sixth graders doing this project is to make sure they have a solid plan, and do a test experiment before the final draft.




Link to recipe https://www.delish.com/cooking/recipe-ideas/recipes/a53547/mason-jar-ice-cream-recipe/

Homemade Organic Dog Treats - Sophia A. and Elliot C.

          At first, we didn't know what to make for our Maker Project. We originally wanted to make a candy machine, but we found out we couldn't do that because it didn’t help the earth in any way. Then we decided to move on to a dog feeder because we know how lazy people are when it comes to feeding their dogs, but we found out that we couldn’t do that either. We finally made up our minds and decided to make healthy organic dog treats. We wanted to make sure that dogs had the healthiest option for their treats. Some dog treats are bad for dogs and have chemicals that can harm them, but our dog treats are fully organic and won't harm the animals. Something challenging was that we would find recipes but then see that they weren't very healthy, so we had to keep searching.     
           We planned a day where we would bake our first batch of dog treats. We baked our first batch on Saturday at Elliot's house. They were a success! My dog ate three cookies. We felt successful and accomplished. We had a little trouble because Elliot was sick, so Sophia made the dough on Tuesday without Elliot, then Elliot came back on Thursday and we baked the treats. The next day it was already the Maker Faire! That morning we had two periods to finish up, in that time we made our glaze and glazed one batch of treats. We made two batches of dog treats. We made Cranberry Coconut dog treats and Peanut Butter Pumpkin Dog treats. We used Sun butter because of the allergy of someone at our school. 
          Something we learned is that, sometimes you have to edit the recipe to make them better. For the first batch of dog treats, we added 1 extra egg, 1 tbsp more almond flour, 1 tbsp more coconut flour, and 1 tbsp more coconut oil. Something else that we learned is that not all things turn out how you want them to, for example the Peanut butter Pumpkin dog treats didn't taste like we wanted them to, even though the dogs liked them.
          Even though the dog treats were a huge success and even people liked eating them, we would make them better by making them even more healthy. We could not use bacon grease next time because it has fat, we would maybe eliminate or use less peanut butter. Our project had a overall cost of $30. If you are thinking of making this make sure to follow your instincts, example: not following the whole recipe exactly. We thought that this project was really fun and enjoyed working together.

Recipes:
https://thelovelylife.org/2019/02/04/cranberry-hearts/
https://pinchofyum.com/homemade-dog-treats

Project MagLevation: A Magnetic Levitating Train. By Kate, Oliver Hu, And Ohad.

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