Week 13

 Muhannad's Rube Goldberg





1. Provide the computer drawing for your individual RG setup.

picture 1.1: drawing for circuit

Picture1.2:drawing for mechanical contraption. 

2. Explain your setup.
Mu set up starts with force sensor that is connected to 555 timer, 555  timer will be connected to 5 v source and the output of the timer will be  connected to the Decimal counter 74192, then I connected the decimal counter to display driver to turn on 7-segment and to the XOR gate to turn on the motor. Connecting LED to the XOR so when the motor on, the LED will be on. I used transistor so when the the 7-segment reaches four, there will be enough current to turn the motor on and when the motor is on, it will pull a string that is connected to the gate in bottle of water, when the gate is released, the water will go through a pipe to other bottle that is attached to a balance, so when the bottle is full he ball will go up and it will through a tube to hit some dominos.





3. Provide photos of the circuit and setup.

photo 3.1: picture of the circuit

photo 3.2: picture of the circuit

photo 3.3: picture of the circuit

photo 3.4: picture of the circuit

photo 3.5: picture of the circuit

photo 3.6: picture of the mechanical contraption.

photo 3.7: picture of the mechanical contraption.

4. Provide at least 2 videos of your setup in action (parts or whole), at least one being a failed attempt.

                                                     video 4.1: shows how circuit works

                                              Video 4.2: an attempt of the project.

5. What failures did you have? How did you overcome them?

some of the failures I had is that my XOR wasn't sending enough voltage and that was hard to figure so i was trying to disconnect all components and measure XOR output alone but when i took LED light out, I measured the voltage and it went up. To overcome this problem, i Put the LED light in another XOR gate and I used transistor to increase the current that is going to the motor. Also, another failure is that how to connect the string on the motor to the gate on the first bottle and that I am trying to figure it out, but I used a glue gate and attach it to bottle of water so when the bottle goes down, the gate will open.

 Lucas’s Rube Goldberg

1. Provide the computer drawing for your individual RG setup.

Picture 1.1 shows the schematic of my original circuit 

Picture 1.2 shows the schematic of my mechanical part of my machine 

2. Explain your setup.

 As the force sensor is pressed the voltage is sent through the Opam where it is increased enough to switch the relay which then powers the 555 timer which then starts the counter which sends a signal to the driver to display numbers 0-9 on the display, and it also sends a signal to the XOR gate which will be set up to activate the LED between numbers 4-9 which would trigger the photosensor to decrease its resistance and allow the motor to run.
The machine is a three step down ramp where a golf a ball is released down the ramp when the motor is activated and pulls open the gate to the ramp the ball then exits the ramp and fall into a cup which is attached to a string when the cup falls the pull then pulls on a platform that then makes dominos fall over leading to the next circuit. 

3. Provide photos of the circuit and setup.

Picture 3.1 shows picture of circuit 

Picture 3.1 shows picture of circuit 

Picture 3.1 shows picture of three step ramp 

Picture 3.1 shows picture of motor and starting gate 

Picture 3.1 shows picture of the cup pulley and the platform 

4. Provide at least 2 videos of your setup in action (parts or whole), at least one being a failed attempt.

Video 4.1 shows a failed attempt force sensor did not activate the circuit

Video 4.2 shows a successful run of the circuit but the motor was to connected 

5. What failures did you have? How did you overcome them?

I faced a problem with getting the 555 timer to work and activate the rest of my circuit so I decided to skip the digital circuit and just have the relay go straight to two 7 segment display which would give a read out of "GO". I also faced a problem with the PhotoSensor, so i decided to use a transistor instead running a 11 volt source through a resistor then to the collector on the transistor and the 5 volt from the relay to the base of the transistor. Lastly I ran the emitter output to the motor.


Group Rube Goldberg

1. Group task: Explain your group RG setup.

To connect our Rube Goldberg machines we used Lucas's RG first after his releases the ball into the cup and falls to the floor the cup and the ball will hit Muhannad's force sensor to trigger his RG to start.


2. Group task: Video of a test run of your group RG.

                                                               Video 2.1: failure attempt.

                                              Video 2.2: another failure attempt.

week 12

                                   Muhannad's Rube Goldberg





1. Provide the computer drawing for your individual RG setup.

picture 1.1: drawing for circuit

2. Explain your setup.
Mu set up starts with force sensor that is connected to 555 timer, 555  timer will be connected to 5 v source and the output of the timer will be  connected to the Decimal counter 74192, then I connected the decimal counter to display driver to turn on 7-segment and to the XOR gate to turn on the motor. Connecting LED to the XOR so when the motor on, the LED will be on. I used transistor so when the the 7-segment reaches four, there will be enough current to turn the motor on and when the motor is on, it will pull a string that is connected to the gate in bottle of water, when the gate is released, the water will go through a pipe to other bottle that is attached to a balance, so when the bottle is full he ball will go up and it will through a tube to hit some dominos.





3. Provide photos of the circuit and setup.

photo 3.1: picture of the circuit

photo 3.2: picture of the circuit

photo 3.3: picture of the circuit

4. Provide at least 2 videos of your setup in action (parts or whole), at least one being a failed attempt.

                                                     video 4.1: shows how circuit works

5. What failures did you have? How did you overcome them?
some of the failures I had is that my XOR wasn't sending enough voltage and that was hard to figure so i was trying to disconnect all components and measure XOR output alone but when i took LED?light out, I measured the voltage and it went up. Also, another failure is that how to connect the string on the motor to the gate on the first bottle and that I am trying to figure it out.

 Lucas’s Rube Goldberg

1. Provide the computer drawing for your individual RG setup.

Picture 1.1 shows the schematic of my original circuit 

Picture 1.2 shows the schematic of my mechanical part of my machine 

2. Explain your setup.

 As the force sensor is pressed the voltage is sent through the Opam where it is increased enough to switch the relay which then powers the 555 timer which then starts the counter which sends a signal to the driver to display numbers 0-9 on the display, and it also sends a signal to the XOR gate which will be set up to activate the LED between numbers 4-9 which would trigger the photosensor to decrease its resistance and allow the motor to run.
The machine is a three step down ramp where a golf a ball is released down the ramp when the motor is activated and pulls open the gate to the ramp the ball then exits the ramp and fall into a cup which is attached to a string when the cup falls the pull then pulls on a platform that then makes dominos fall over leading to the next circuit. 

3. Provide photos of the circuit and setup.

Picture 3.1 shows picture of circuit 

Picture 3.1 shows picture of circuit 

Picture 3.1 shows picture of three step ramp 

Picture 3.1 shows picture of motor and starting gate 

Picture 3.1 shows picture of the cup pulley and the platform 

4. Provide at least 2 videos of your setup in action (parts or whole), at least one being a failed attempt.

Video 4.1 shows a failed attempt force sensor did not activate the circuit

Video 4.2 shows a successful run of the circuit but the motor was to connected 

5. What failures did you have? How did you overcome them?

I faced a problem with getting the 555 timer to work and activate the rest of my circuit so I decided to skip the digital circuit and just have the relay go straight to two 7 segment display which would give a read out of "GO". I also faced a problem with the PhotoSensor, so i decided to use a transistor instead running a 11 volt source through a resistor then to the collector on the transistor and the 5 volt from the relay to the base of the transistor. Lastly I ran the emitter output to the motor.

Week 11

Part A: Strain Gauges:

Strain gauges are used to measure the strain or stress levels on the materials. Alternatively, pressure on the strain gauge causes a generated voltage and it can be used as an energy harvester. You will be given either the flapping or tapping type gauge. When you test the circle buzzer type gauge, you will lay it flat on the table and tap on it. If it is the long rectangle one, you will flap the piece to generate voltage.

1. Connect the oscilloscope probes to the strain gauge. Record the peak voltage values (positive and negative) by flipping/tapping the gauge with low and high pressure. Make sure to set the oscilloscope horizontal and vertical scales appropriately so you can read the values. DO NOT USE the measure tool of the oscilloscope. Adjust your oscilloscope so you can read the values from the screen. Fill out Table 1 and provide photos of the oscilloscope.

Table1.1: show measurements of minimum and maximum value. 

Table1.2: shows measurements of minimum and maximum value.

Graph1.1: show the plot of Low flipping strength

Graph1.2: show graph of high tapping strength

 when we flipped the strain gauge, we got for the Low  flipping strength a minimum value of -7 V and a maximum value of 12 V. as it is showing in the graphs. For the high strength flipping we got a minimum output of -15 and a maximum output of 28 V. The other two pictures shows the result when we tapped the strain gauge, for low tapping strength we got a minimum output of -2V and a maximum output of 5V, for the high tapping strength we got a minimum output of -4V and a maximum output of 15V.

2. Press the “Single” button below the Autoscale button on the oscilloscope. This mode will allow you to capture a single change at the output. Adjust your time and amplitude scales so you have the best resolution for your signal when you flip/tap your strain gauge. Provide a photo of the oscilloscope graph.

Graph2.1: show the plot of single change at the tapping output.

Graph2.1: show the plot of single change at the flipping output.

Part B: Half-Wave Rectifiers

1. Construct the following half-wave rectifier. Measure the input and the output using the oscilloscope and provide a snapshot of the outputs.

Graph3.1: show the input of the circuit.

Graph3.2: show the output of the circuit.

     

  

in the first graph we see the AC input with an amplitude of 10 V pk-pk and in the other picture we see the half wave rectifier for our output and it is a positive half wave.

 Period for output is 1 ms

2. Calculate the effective voltage of the input and output and compare the values with the measured ones by completing the following table.

Table2.1: show the calculated and measured values for the effective input and output.

3. Explain how you calculated the rms values. Do calculated and measured values match?

picture3.1: show the formulas for the effective value of the input
and the output.

We used two equations for each for each calculation. First we used these formulas to find the input and output values as shown in the picture with a period of 1ms, and the result was 2.50 V for the input and 1.59V for the output which wasn't the same as the measured one, then we used another method to calculate the effective voltage values which are Vrms=Vpeak/2 for the the input voltage 
and  Voutpu=Vpeak/pi for the output voltage and we got the same result which means that our measurements 
weren't accurate. 

4. Construct the following circuit and record the output voltage using both DMM and the oscilloscope.

Table 4.1: show the output values by using oscilloscope and DMM.

In our circuit we used an amplitude of 5 V and output of the mean voltage and the output of the pk-pk voltage, when we measured the output voltage of the pk-pk by the DMM we couldn't read any value.

5. Replace the 1 µF capacitor with 100 µF and repeat the previous step. What has changed?

Table 5.1: show the output values by using oscilloscope and DMM.

In our circuit we used an amplitude of 5 V and output of the mean voltage and the output of the pk-pk voltage, when we measured the output voltage of the pk-pk by the DMM we couldn't read any value. when we used a 100 micro farad capacitor, the values changed and we can see that the output voltage of the mean increased and the output voltage peak-peak decreased.

Part C: Energy Harvesters

1. Construct the half-wave rectifier circuit without the resistor but with the 1 µF capacitor. Instead of the function generator, use the strain gauge. Discharge the capacitor every time you start a new measurement. Flip/tap your strain gauge and observe the output voltage. Fill out the table below:

Table C1.1: shows the output voltage of the flipping strain gauge. 

2. Briefly explain your results.

The more the strain gauge was flipped, if it was a higher frequency of flips or a longer period of time, the more the capacitor was charged giving a higher output voltage.

3. If we do not use the diode in the circuit (i.e. using only strain gauge to charge the capacitor), what would you observe at the output? Why?

If we didn't use the diode in the circuit we would see more of an AC output from the capacitor where it varies up and down. Because the diode is not in place to turn the voltage into a DC source.

4. Write a MATLAB code to plot the date in table of Part C1.

clear all;
close all;
x = [ 10 20  30];
y1 = [ 2.12 2.15 2.17];
y2 = [ 2.21 3.02 3.11];
plot (x, y1, 'o-', x, y2, 's-')
grid on
xlabel('Time (s)')
ylabel('Vout (v)')
legend('1 Tap per second','4 Taps per second')

Graph C4.1 Shows the MatLab graph using the code above