1A – Basic Circuits Project – Blenderhelper

The Team

Group Members: Lauren Valley, Claire Hentschker, Tian Jin

Roles: Claire Hentschker as the Scribe, Tian Jin as the Integrator, Lauren Valley as the Designer

Our Video

Introduction

A student, overworked and under slept, attempts to study for her exams. Drowning in a sea of paper notes, the student tries to close her notebook to get some much needed sleep. Unfortunately, The Blenderhelper will not allow that. The second the notebook closes, a blender is turned on and begins shredding the student’s notes. Startled, the student reopens the book and tries to keep studying. Every time the notebook is closed, the blender turns on and shreds more of the student’s notes, forcing the student to study forever.

The blender-helper is a machine that is activated every time a notebook is closed, teaching a student that closing a notebook to stop studying will destroy everything they have worked for. For the students studying at CMU and beyond, there is an overarching mentality grounded in stress, encouraging students to spend every waking hour working, because the alternative is failure. This contraption both attempts to provide a practical solution to this problem (an incentive to work to work forever) while also drawing attention to the ridiculousness of this culture of stress.

Technical Notes

A Lipo3.7 Volt battery powers a relay box to move its armature to AC Power when two pieces of copper on the sides of a notebook are put together. This sends AC power to a kitchen blender, turning it on.

Video and Image Documentation 

 
This is a video of our circuit. Two pieces of copper, attached to conductive thread are attached to each side of a notebook. When these two pieces of copper are pushed together, the relay box sends AC power to the blender, turning it on.

In this image, we can see each component, and how it is connected.

Our circuit diagram