Success criteria:
- The helicopter is able to lift off and fly.
- Me and my teammates learned something that meets our expectations.
- Me and my teammates considered safety issues during the design and building process
I. Lift off
We tried our best to let our helicopter lift off. But as long as the motor is not strong enough, we can’t lift it, even though we applied only a little weight on it. We were having a hard time struggling with how to increase the speed of the propellers. Our final solution was to use a 9-volt battery, which is quite a lot for our weak motor, but still, it worked, and the motor spun faster. On the last day of our building, we wondered if the propellers were too small, so we designed two new propellers using the popsicle stick. After installing these onto the helicopter, We found that it works even worse. We think those new popsicle propellers may be too heavy (You can see how weak the motor is…)
II. Learning
Even though we failed on the first criterion, we still learned a lot. First and most importantly, we knew that flying was such a tricky thing. Also, I improved my soldering skill; my teammates learned more about electronic design and circuit making. The new skills learned make me think that we probably succeeded at this point.
III.Safety
I considered safety as always first place. Since we are playing around with electrics, it’s really important to ensure the voltage is OK for the human body. Although Alex was accidentally cut and bleeding by the spinning propeller, that was the only safety issue. After Alex was injured a little because of that, he also started to focus on safety. Overall, I think this was pretty successful, but not as successful as the second criterion.
Pic. Final Product
