🔋 M2 Energy Transfer

The Cogworks Museum of Machines is opening an energy gallery: trebuchets, clocks and steam engines. Each exhibit must show exactly where the energy goes.

Engineers, Advanced. Engineer Stamp: Energy Architect.

Lessons

1. Potential to kinetic: the trebuchet: Medieval engineers threw stones over castle walls with just a falling weight. How?
2. The escapement clock: A clock lets energy out one tick at a time. Why not all at once?
3. Range vs counterweight: Double the weight, double the range? Let’s test the claim.
4. The sun-and-planet beam engine: James Watt used this gear trick in 1781 to dodge a patent. Engineers are sneaky!
5. Design Day: The 60-second machine: The museum needs a timer for its “one-minute tour”. No batteries allowed.
6. Showcase: Energy Gallery Opening: Every machine is timed. Each team labels its exhibit with an energy-flow diagram.

Design challenge

Build a machine that runs for as close to 60 seconds as possible from one release of stored energy.

Engineering ideas

• Counterweight
• Escapement
• Flywheel
• Sun & Planet Gears

Standards: MS-PS3-1, MS-PS3-2, MS-PS3-5