The Feicolink Elevator
Parker Mink
Travis Feigerle
Melissa Cole
Our Elevator
Design Concepts
• The process is started by pushing the golf ball off the elevated
2x4 into a cup that trips a lever.
• Once the lever is depressed, it releases a marble propelled by
a compressed spring up a ramp to hit the first domino above
the domino’s center of mass.
• This triggers the domino effect through our arrangement of
dominoes until they set off the rat trap.
• The rat trap pulls the sponge stopper out of an inverted bottle
to release the sand-gravel mixture.
• The sand lands in a weighted bucket to begin the movement of
the weight.
Stored Energy
• To start, there is gravitational potential energy in the golf ball that
will be converted to kinetic energy once it hits the cup.
• There is elastic potential energy in the spring propelling the ball
that is converted to the marble’s kinetic energy.
• The marbles kinetic energy is carried through the dominoes.
• The rat trap has elastic potential energy in the two springs that
power its motion.
• The sand has gravitational potential energy that is converted into
kinetic energy that causes the weight to move.
Construction Issues
• We had to raise the height of the golf ball to have enough
energy to release the lever.
• We had to add a ramp to make sure the marble hit the domino
above the center of mass so it would fall over correctly.
• We had to change the compression of the spring.
• We had to convert from a mouse trap to a rat trap in order to
have enough force to release the stopper.
• We had to change the type of bottle we used to meet height
requirements.
• We had to melt the sides of the bottle to minimize sand build up.