JayWeeks

Hello! My girlfriend is doing her final project using thermochromic pigment, and she's having trouble getting it to trigger with touch and body heat. It looks like you've had great success with this, so I was interested in the pigment you used.I noticed you mentioned your source, which I appreciate, but you described it as "the best pigment" and I was wondering how you were judging them. Did you try out a few or is this purely based off metrics like transition temperature?Thank you, and I think this project is a really beautiful application for thermochromic pigment! It's very similar to what my girlfriend is doing right now (though with a different message I think).

Mmmmaybe... but probably not.Here's my trouble: I have no experience teaching 5th graders. I don't know how good they are at following directions carefully, writing code, or making electrical circuits. I like to think that, when given the chance, young students are absolutely capable of surprising sophistication, but I'm going to say no I don't think it's appropriate.That's not because I think they aren't capable of it, but because I think it needs some more prep work than you have time for. If you wanted to do this, I would recommend taking a group of students aside as a test to see how well they can do these projects. I also think that you would need to familiarize yourself with the project so the students can look to you when things go wrong. To my mind that means that you should bui...

Mmmmaybe... but probably not.Here's my trouble: I have no experience teaching 5th graders. I don't know how good they are at following directions carefully, writing code, or making electrical circuits. I like to think that, when given the chance, young students are absolutely capable of surprising sophistication, but I'm going to say no I don't think it's appropriate.That's not because I think they aren't capable of it, but because I think it needs some more prep work than you have time for. If you wanted to do this, I would recommend taking a group of students aside as a test to see how well they can do these projects. I also think that you would need to familiarize yourself with the project so the students can look to you when things go wrong. To my mind that means that you should build a complete robot yourself before asking any student to do it.It should only take a few days to put together a functional robot with my tutorials. Unfortunately, with the time it takes to ship the items you'll need, that becomes something closer to two weeks (at best). I would not advise investing in enough parts for an entire class until you know this is a project you're willing to tackle, so that doubles the time to a month. I also believe that this is an optimistic time-frame, which is why I'm not recommending it.That said, I would absolutely encourage you to pursue this as a possibility for later classes. If you're interested in that, let me know. I'd love to work with you on this.If you still want to pursue the November competition, please feel free to ask me questions. I'll do my best to provide as much help as I can (with the understanding that I would be doing so in my spare time).I've always wanted to see these projects applied to a classroom, so it breaks my heart to offer you such a pessimistic outlook.Best of luck!Jay

I should also point out that I don't know your experience level, so I'm assuming that you haven't ever soldered a circuit board, programmed, or built a robot before. If that's a bad assumption on my part, please let me know.

Google translate: "In wood or cardboard, here is a small tool to find exactly the centers of the circles."That's a really good suggestion! I wanted to do this with as few specialized tools as possible, but that's simple enough that I bet it could be easily made with card stock.Google translate: C'est une très bonne suggestion! Je voulais le faire avec autant d'outils spécialisés que possible, mais c'est assez simple pour que je parie que cela pourrait être facilement réalisé avec un stock de carte.(Désolé pour ma boucherie du français ...)

Hi again!Sorry for taking so long to respond.I know that you're young, and I've been trying to keep things simple and understandable. If you can tell me where I lost you, I'll do my best to explain.As for batteries, I picked up a Nickle-Metal-Hydride battery and charger kit from Fry's for fairly cheap ($25 if I recall correctly). I went for that one off the advice from a local Hobby RC shop. I would definitely recommend finding one and asking for help picking a battery.I hope you are having good luck with your project!

Unfortunately I'm going to have to decline. I'll happily answer any questions you have, but I'm too busy with school, work, and my own projects.I wish you the best of luck, though!

This is cute and compact and elegant! I love it!

This is really extremely cool. I can't get over how cool this is.It does, however, raise some questions. The biggest question I have is, if the idea is to make lots of little, autonomous sailboats for ocean science, doesn't that increase the amount of trash added to the oceans?I mean, eventually these boats have to fail, and with larger number of boats, you'll have more failures. Compared to a full sized boat, which also have a much smaller chance of failure (or trash generation) per unit, I feel like we're increasing the impact to the ocean, while trying to study it.Don't get me wrong though! I think this is a really cool idea that needs to be developed! It's like weather-balloon satellites and micro-satellites, in that it's opening exploration up to smaller institutions and individual...

This is really extremely cool. I can't get over how cool this is.It does, however, raise some questions. The biggest question I have is, if the idea is to make lots of little, autonomous sailboats for ocean science, doesn't that increase the amount of trash added to the oceans?I mean, eventually these boats have to fail, and with larger number of boats, you'll have more failures. Compared to a full sized boat, which also have a much smaller chance of failure (or trash generation) per unit, I feel like we're increasing the impact to the ocean, while trying to study it.Don't get me wrong though! I think this is a really cool idea that needs to be developed! It's like weather-balloon satellites and micro-satellites, in that it's opening exploration up to smaller institutions and individuals, and I think that's great!Furthermore, the modular design not only allows for a bunch of cool configurations, it also provides an interesting way of optimizing geometry to improve performance.I think this is really cool, and I'm looking forward to seeing how your tests go!

That's a neat idea! Good luck!

What model of vacuum pump do you use?

Very cool!

Brilliant. I'll think of this next time I have that nightmare where my teeth are falling out...

I may have to make some of these for myself! I always want something to fidget with when I'm talking on the phone.

Simple, elegant, and effortlessly beautiful.

This is a really neat project! I like how you gave examples for mechanical linkages to connect to the diaphragm.Could you include more diagrams and explanations for how the engine works? I think this could do with a little more theory. Thanks!