Recent content by TheRyan

I competed in an engineering competition in high school and made a ballista out of PVC piping, a wooden crossbar and surgical tubing for propulsion of the ping pong ball. I drilled holes in the top of the PVC pipe along its length to change distance, had slots milled on both sides for the...

I'm not in the stage of choosing between one or the other yet, but have not seen a good explanation of the difference between these two degrees. Can someone explain the difference between a Master of Engineering degree and a Master of Science degree? What are the pros/cons of them, and if you...

Thanks for the help, I passed it along to the person I would have been working with during the competition. However, I was unable to compete due to the re-scheduling of the testing/judging of another competition I was involved with. The other person on my team was able to get help in building...

Too bad James Bond's magnetic bullet deflection built into a watch was proven ineffective on MythBusters, otherwise that technology could have made one sweet kind of electromagnetic body armor. How about Iron Man? That's a kind of mechanical body armor that moves with you, and we all know from...

Thanks for the great ideas. By curving the blades, I'm assuming you mean concave towards the wind source, so the air moves "smoothly" as it changes direction as opposed to a flat, angled blade which would change direction suddenly and still leave some force against the blades in the direction...

I'm just interested in FEA, so I figured I'd post here. Is it feasible to do FEA calculations by hand? For example, calculating stress and bending motion on a tool of uniform material and density, at certain nodes throughout the tool (for example, bending movement of a wrench as it tightens a...

The power source will be an electric fan, the turbine will be tested inside and so those components of the competition will be the same for all teams. I'm not sure if it would be possible to make an airfoil with the materials given, let alone make multiple identical airfoils (for as many blades...

I've searched the net and this site, and although I've found several sites and posts related to the idea of wind turbine / windmill design, I have yet to find anything explaining the science and math behind windmill blade design. I've entered into a technology competition which involves...

Not sure if your calculus teacher ever taught you this neat mnemonic, so I'll share it anyways: LIPET, which stands for Logarithmic, Inverse trig., Polynomial, Exponential, and Trigonometric. This is the order in which you should choose for something to set as "u" when integrating by parts...

I see this is a pretty old post, but I'm bringing it back because it's relevant to what I'm doing. gawrys, I'm a senior like hmh, and have taken IED, DE, CIM, POE, and am currently taking EDD. At my high school we can get college credit to the Rochester Institute of Technology for courses...

I know I would need more batteries, and Li-ion are really not an option (although they are much better) due to the large price difference.

Thanks ank_gl! Guess I'll need to look for a fairly hefty speed controller then...

Thanks for the info, Danger. Pulling 1,000 amps to start the motor is a lot, but then again you said it's got a 12.5:1 compression ratio, which is quite a bit higher than most vehicles. The wheelchair motors I had were originally connected to a joystick controller, with forwards, backwards...

I'm thinking of using a car starter motor to power an electric mini-bike project. Does anyone have an idea how many amps a starter motor could draw if it was to be on a bike moving ~300 lbs. (max), with a gear and chain drive to reduce the speed and increase the torque (ex. 1/2 speed, 2x...

kach, that's a cool video. I have seen another vehicle, the Killacycle, which is capable of very high speeds and able to charge in <5 minutes. The batteries on it are really high-end. I think I'll try to go the starter motor route, although it requires some extra work on the motor, as...