Innovative Mechanical Engineering Questions

1. Energy Conversion problem

You must have seen a mechanical system that works in a sequence to complete a given task. The easiest example of this is on Tom N Jerry show where Tom uses a system to finally catch Jerry. So here you should build a system that can throw or hit or strike a tennis ball kept at a height of 50 cm directly onto a Bull’s eye Target (centre of circles) kept at a distance of 1 m from the ball on the ground. It consists of 3 circles as shown. The radius of circles are 15, 35 and 55 cm respectively.

Your system should consist of as many energy conversions as possible. If the ball falls in the first circle you get 30 pts, second circle - 20 pts, third circle - 10 pts.

Energy Conversions and Links:

Energy Conversion is change of energy from one form to another form.

If the energy in the previous step is not used to drive the succeeding energy conversions directly, it would create a discontinuity in the circuit and thus would be considered as a link. e.g.: Light falling on a LDR activating an electrical circuit is considered as a link as no direct conversion from light to electricity is involved.

Energy conversion from A to B is different from energy conversion B to A.

Energy Classification:

The forms of energies considered are electrical, mechanical, wind, tidal, chemical, thermal, sound, and light.

Only two forms of mechanical energy will be considered, i.e., potential Energy, kinetic Energy.

Rotational Energy comes under Kinetic Energy.

Spring energy comes under Potential Energy.

Wind Energy is different from kinetic energy grouped in other forms of mechanical energy.

2. Weight calculator Make a mechanical device which can measure the weight up to 5 kg. Your model should be calibrated on an analog scale. You cannot use springs, rubbers and clutch wire. Weight to be measured will be in the form of weight existing in the market e.g. 50gms,100gms,500gms etc.

3. Area comparator Make a mechanical device which can compare the area of two rectangles cut from a piece of paper. Maximum area to be given is 15X15 cm2 .

4. Autonomous vehicle Make a vehicle which has to cover the distance of 1 meter and should return back to nearest of its initial position. Your vehicle should not be more than 25*25 cm2 base, although there is no limit on the height and the task to be performed should be fully automatic. No human intervention will be allowed in between except for the initial movement.

5. Measure the Displacement

Make a device which can measure the distance it has traveled. The distance must be shown on a scale. Maximum distance to be measured is 5 m.

6. Make any mechanical model which can perform a task. Your model should be should be working one and there innovation. You can make models like chip collector from Mechanical Workshop, Spin the tennis ball, Sine wave generator on paper etc.