Week 13

Operating principles 🔗 & Mechanism designs 🔧

Operating principle 🔗 

How things work? 🤔

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

Example:

What is the separation principle behind distillation?

: Differences in relative volatilities 

How about solvent extraction (LLE)?

: A solute can distribute itself in a certain ratio between 2 immiscible solvents.

Activity 1 📝

We were asked to find what the principle of the chemical product is based on, which our chemical product is a Mini Water Bottle Fridge,

Operating principle related to the fridge: 

1. Involves removing heat from one region and depositing it in another

2. When you pass a low-temperature liquid close to objects that you want to cool, heat from those objects is transferred to the liquid, which evaporates and takes the heat away in the process.

Basically, it is related to heat transfer, the tendency of gases to get hot when they are compressed and cold when they expand, along with the help of some refined devices, which help a refrigerator cool the stuff stored in it.

Everyone proceeds to share with everyone on their own operating principles. Each group is given one toy and to find out the engineering mechanisms behind the toy.

Mechanisms principle 🔧

Mechanism enables & enhances principle. Engineering mechanism is something that transforms forces and movement into a desired set of output forces and movement.

Example:

Agitated solvent extraction column

6 essential mechanisms in functional prototypes:

- Actuators

- Cams

- Gears

- Lever

- Ratchets

- Springs

Activity 2 📝

We are given a catapult and we examine, we found out the mechanisms behind the toy and how it works.

Mechanisms:

1. Gears

It consists of gears in the toy that allows it to function.

2. Springs

It consists of springs for the ability of the toy to shoot out the projectile

Activity 3 📝

For the final activity, we had to design a ping pong ball launcher that can shoot and reload ping pong balls. The activity also came with some criteria. These are:

• The device should be able to hold at least 5 balls.
• The device should propel the ball with stored energy.
• The mechanism can either be fully automatic, semi-automatic or fully manual.

We also had to include sketches, short notes and a clear description of the propulsion and reloading mechanisms.

After doing some research, we came up with this:

After we were done, Dr Noel gave a quick briefing about Practical 3, and we spent the rest of the lesson playing with the toys.

Reflection 📜

Trisyia 🐌

This week's lesson was actually really fun. We got to know more about how things move and work. We also got to examine toys in class which was enjoyable. All the mechanisms learned is something we need to use for our practical. We also needed to identify the working principle for our own product which got us thinking a lot. It was challenging at first since I was not exactly sure what operating principles are but we eventually got there. Overall, the lesson was pretty light and fun.

Jun Ying 🚲

Unfortunately, for this lesson, I did not manage to catch most of the lesson as I came late. However, I arrived just on time for the final activity. After learning about what I had missed, I regret not coming earlier, as the content in this week, such as the actuators and rackets, was very intriguing. Researching about the ping pong ball launcher was also very interesting as we watched YouTube videos about it and its mechanisms. It broadened my horizons quite a bit as I did not think about how a ping pong ball launcher works before. I felt dumbfounded as well, as I did not expect such a simple looking object to have such complex mechanisms and operating principles. Lastly, the toys were also fun to play with, and I got to see how the mechanisms and operating principles learnt in this lesson were applied in the toys. Overall, I am quite happy with what I learnt this week.

John 👽

For this week, it was very interesting once again as we learned about the operating principle of mechanism. Dr Noel gave us some toys to play with so that we have a better understanding of what the mechanism does. Different group have different toys which have different mechanism and it was really easy to learn once seeing it hands on. With the experience of the mechanism from the toys, it allowed my team and I to come up with some mechanism for our own product. I would say that classes would definitely be more fun if there are hands on stuff like the toys to help us visualize and see certain concepts so that we can have an easier time applying it as we would have a clue on how to make use of the certain concepts through the hands on stuff.

Jessica 🐰

In this week, we learned about the operating principle of mechanism. To allows us to get hands-on experience, our lecture, Dr. Noel , took some toys for us to capture the mechanism behind the toys. It was fun and I will be able to have a hand-on experience of how the toys work by its mechanism principle. After me and my teammates discuss the toy's principle, I was the one to introduce our observation. Besides, we also have to design a ping pong ball launcher. It's a big challenge for us. Fortunately, we eventually found some ideas on the Internet. Today's lesson was very interesting and I learned something new while playing the toys in class.

Kevan 🐺

In this week, i learned different mechanisms and how they work. We were even given toys made using different mechanics introduced to us, we then understood how each object works with one another and how it functions. We also had to design a ping pong ball launcher, we had to discuss how to utilize the mechanics and figure out how the ping pong ball launcher works. Overall it was a fun experience