K'Nex 2010 Competition - cable car

Mercer's Spring 2010 K'Nex engineering competition for freshman engineers. This competition was called Cable Car. This was the winning design. Using an automatic transmission, it was able to be fast at first, then switch to a lower gear ratio to maximize torque.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• MVI
• 0451

[Scerab]

nice, balancing it must of been hard. what were the rules for the contest? o and how did the automatic transmission work? this was pretty damn cool, I wish we had K'NEX competitions around here.

[MUcreeper]

@Scerab Actually using four points of contact, two on top, two on bottom, it created a squeezing mechanism on the wire. The automatic transmission worked by the chain it was connected to. Once the opponent pulled, it caused a middle rod to shift to the right. Then the gear ratio would switch from 1:1 to a smaller gear:larger gear, giving it amazing torque.

[Gameboytri77a]

Cool. Was it hauling something at the bottom?? And Check out my vids!

[MUcreeper]

@Gameboytri77a Actually it was like a tug of war. So we were pulling against another K'Nex car.

[Hitchtopher]

Where did you get that large blue gear? I would really like to know. Also awesome cable car.