so, my fiance, being a mechanical engineer at the illustrious University of Oklahoma, has been given a project. actually, her group has been given a project and i have not been asked to help.

which is good, because im an education major and work full-time. so i wouldnt have time to help, even if i could (which is doubtful, given my non-background in engineering).

but the project has intrigued me. heres the project:

so while i will not be helping, my curiosity has been piqued. how would you, o' learned bonnevilleclub members, build this vehicle?

you have my assurance no ideas given in here will be transmitted to her, as that would be unfair for the rest of the class.

Can you soft boil your egg ?

Put a paddle wheel (maybe with little buckets on it) at the bottom of a drain tube. And put cable on the axle that will limit travel and prevent the vehicle from overshooting by wrapping up on the axle.

that was my thought, for the most part. although the cable on the axle to limit the distance travelled is new to me. but i wonder, would that cound as a tether/winch?

also, if the water cannot be taken with you (the example calls it a 'water tower"0, how do you go about storing the energy for use when your car is moving, without using a rubber band or something of a similar nature? if thats what he means by 'tether/winch', anyway.

and i assume soft-boiling is disallowed as well.

When it said you can't leave part of the vehicle behind, I thought that meant the bucket of water had to come with you.

Does the egg need to be lowered into the structure?

i would presume it has to be lowered in. i havent gotten that far in my mental designs yet, as my mind balks at the idea of taking on both tasks (moving the egg and moving the car) at the same time.

my thoughts so far, assuming rubber-bands are allowed.

so what am i way off on, what have i over-complicated, or what alternate methods would work just fine too?

Well the rules state Hard boiled... Not Soft boiled... lol

Those projects are fun.
When I was in school ours was much more straightforward.

Balsa wood structure capable of carrying the most load.

Another was determining damage of a manual gearbox with disassembly by recording the harmonic frequencies using spectral analysis. It was new technology 30 years ago but very common now.

Now it'* Mechatronics using a blend of mechanical and electrical technology via sensors and robotic controls.

The touble with trying to make it come to a gliding stop is that the best way to get that done is lots of test runs, and overcoming unknown friction coefficients in all the moving parts can become quite inconsistant. Rubber bands would likely cause oscillation, it would aver shoot, then come back, etc.

If you go with the cable/string wrapping the axle, when it comes to the end, it can trigger/release a mechanism that will lower the egg.

I don't see anything in the rules listed that states the vehicle can't lose it'* water as it goes along...

I also don't see anything prohibiting air power...

So how about capping the bucket, pumping the head space with compressed air, and shooting the water stream out the bottom (or side) across a paddlewheel connected to the driveaxle (perhaps by wheels and a belt)? It'd be just like those water rocket toys

I also like the idea stated earlier about using a winding cable around one axle to limit distance traveled.