HELP! SCIENCE PULLEY PROJECT! CAN ANYONE HELP ME OUT? i'd appreciate it sooooo much=]?

Question

We have this project to do in school, and i have absolutley NO experience in this. We have to raise a 1 kg weight off the ground three and 1/2 feet with a 1/2 kg weight and have it move over and land on our desk. The catch: we cannot use springs, magnets, batteries, etc., and they only time we can touch the machine is when we place the 1/2 kg weight on our "simple machine" I thought a pulley system might work, but i have no idea how to make one. PLEASE HELP ME OUT

Answer 1

okay, you know those little things ribbons come all rolled up in, just wrap a piece of string around it once and attach it to the weight. For the ribbon thingy holder type deal you want a large rimmed (since it'll be holding the weight up you want the string to stay on there.) kinda ribbon holder. You also want it to be nice and sturdy, so either get a thick cardboard or for a better solution put a plastic cup inside the hole and tape it there (make sure it's not valuable or too thin. basically just use a drinking glass.) . if the weight has a designated area to attach something to it put a blunt (not a fishing hook cause some schools will give you an office referral. plus someone could get hurt.) hook on to the string so the with will be lifted efficiently. If not then it would be a good idea to wrap the string around the weight so the string looks perpendicular around the weight. to hook it up to the ceiling you could tape it but the best idea is to get a spinning thing a ma bobber like you see on those hooking key chains and get your teacher to safely attach it to the ceiling. Also it's a good idea to use a long strong type string. Good Luck! ^-^

Answer 2

I have a couple of ideas. One of them is like you said, and use a moving pulley to pull the 1 kg weight and use a support to pull one side of pulley and use the 1/2 kg weight to pull the other side of pulley to make up the total 1 kg needed to move the 1 kg weight. However, the points that pull on the pulley & the 1 kg weigh has to be different heights and probably 1/2 feet apart in order for the object to move a horizontal distance.

The other one is with levers and pivot points which would lift the 1 kg weight with 1/2 kg weight. The levers would also need to be able to rotate move the 1 kg weight horizontally.

Just a couple ideas. Hope it helps.