Progress Report
Justin Kufro
Oshada Gunasekara
Analysis
During our Children’s Museum visit we discovered that our magnet configuration was mostly sufficient to keep the car on the wheel. One limitation was that if the wheel was spun too fast, then the car would not be able to hold on. Another limitation was that our motors almost constantly stalled due to the magnetic force required to keep the car on the track. This ultimately caused faster usage of the battery and caused the car to not be able to move freely about the wheel. We imagine that if the car could drive on the track it may have trouble staying centered / avoiding bumping the sides of the track.
There are a few modes of usage for the project where children and adults found moments of delight with the project. Some children where especially interested in spinning the wheel, regardless of if the car was on it or not. Some children were interested in pushing the car around the garage floor on their own, entirely without the wheel. There were both children and adults who found a moment of delight in placing the car on the wheel and feel a satisfying magnetic click as it adhered to the track.
The visit changed our perception of the project in that the wheel isn’t completely necessary to have moments of delight. This does not mean that we want to get rid of the wheel, rather that we should consider supporting additional modes of usage with only the car.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNYcGvBiwrE
Revision Plan
The main resolution to our technical limitations is to redesign the car to better move about the wheel. This means ordering more powerful motors, making the car lighter, centering the drive wheels, and placing caster balls on either end of the car.
The redesign of the car changes the fundamental experience in that we now expect the geared-down motors to cause the car to move slowly about the track. We accept this as a good change because it better exaggerates the two modes of interaction that we intended with the car & wheel: users helping the car right itself to the top of the wheel, and users turning the wheel to cause the car to continually try to right itself.
We also plan on minor redesigns of the wheel. These include making the track less polygonal with better supporting structures, and adding a passive brake that keep the wheel from continually oscillating.
We already emailed our second order form that includes the parts necessary to make the second revision of the car.
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