Potential ideas:

  • Wind-up toy 
      • This video shows an extremely straightforward design for a wind-up car, but if I choose to follow this design, I will employ gears to create a more complicated wind-up toy.  
    • Summary: The toy will be easy to use, similar to that of traditional wind-up toys.  
    • Energy: The winding mechanism will transfer elastic potential energy into kinetic energy.  
    • Challenge: ★☆☆☆☆
  • Water turbine 
    • Pros: Many resources online to teach me how to build and design the machine.  
    • Cons: This requires some knowledge of 3D printing, and I need to learn how circuits work.  
    • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqdaWFHn1Tc 
      • The video shows a medium-scale design of a water turbine, but if I choose to make a device similar to this, I will probably scale it down.  
    • Summary: The water turbine will be able to light up a light bulb or an LED while it is being spun.  
    • Energy: The water turbine will use the falling water as gravitational energy to turn the turbine, turning the generator with kinetic energy that creates electrical energy.  
    • Challenge: ★★★★☆
  • Drum 
    • Pros: Building should be simple and easy to make.  
    • Cons: I have limited knowledge of what the design of the device should be like.  
    • The motor has multiple ‘sticks’ attached, and sticks hit a balloon spread across a cup.  
    • Summary: The spinning motor will generate sound by hitting the ‘drum’. 
    • Energy: The kinetic energy of the motor will allow the ‘sticks’ to hit the ‘drum’ creating sound energy.  
    • Challenge: ★★☆☆☆