The Wooden Wonder

Cody Johnson

Jared RowlandStephen Sherwood

Nick Watson

The Team

Introduction Our main goal was to create a contraption to

activate a cat toy. We acquired our materials mostly from the

scrap pile or around the house. We only purchased a roll of wire and wooden

balls from a craft store.

Overview Starting off, a steel ball bearing rolls down a

tube, hits a ramp and lands in a PVC pipe pivoting on an axis.

The PVC pipe flips downward, releasing the ball bearing into another pipe.

The ball bearing then strikes a wooden Newton’s Cradle ball that rests inside the pipe at the end.

Overview (cont’d) The energy is then transferred to a wooden ball

resting on a piece of wood. The wooden ball rolls down a ramp, then

strikes a toy dump truck. The toy truck rolls down the final ramp,

striking two electrical connections, which then activates the cat toy.

The Wooden Wonder!

Concepts Demonstrated Projectile Motion

• Steel ball launching into PVC pipe Center of Mass

• PVC pipe pivoting on a board Collision

• Steel ball hitting wooden ball• Wooden ball hitting truck

Conservation of Energy• Newton’s Cradle

Conclusions This project took a lot longer than it should

have. We had a lot of problems with the toy dump

truck going down ramp and turning on the cat toy.

This project was a lot of trial and error, but the outcome was neat.