Dispensing Machine Project

History: Our Holy Water Dispenser was originally invented and designed by the Greek inventor Heron of Alexandria in Greece during his life as a mathematician and physicist (c.10 ad- c.70 ad). Heron was responsible for several early influential designs and inventions, for example Heron’s Syringe, Fountain, wind powered organ, and many more alongside other similar inventors such as Archimedes and philosophers such as Plato and Soctrates. It is believed that as Heron lived in Alexandria, Greece, it is there that his ideas and designs became the influential inventions they are now recognized today. This early “vending machine”/ dispenser was coin-operated and used primarily by worshippers before entering the temple. By inserting a coin into the machine, the weight of the coin causes the displacement of a lever located within the machine which in turn pulls up on a plug stopping the water from flowing out freely, when the plug is pulled out of position however, it allows a small amount of water to escape the machine. This water was used by the worshippers for ritual washings; bathing before entering the temple. Short-term, this machine was implied simply as a more efficient means to deliver the holy water to each worshipper that would attend the temple as well as collecting profit. Although I suspect that in Ancient Greece, Heron, nor anyone else carried any long-term implications for this machine, in today’s society we see variations on this basic machine everyday as there are now several different dispensing machines used vastly across many fields that may relate back to this version. Design and Bulding Process: Day #1- On this first day working on the project, my partner and I first needed to decide on what kind of machine we would ultimately like to build, as neither of us are very decisive individuals This was a very difficult step for us as we plowed through many ideas and slaved over several different designs of machines. To make our decision we tried to take into consideration aspects such as calculating different varieties of values pertaining to our Physics 11 currriculum etc. Day #2- During this second day working on the challenge we were finally able to establish the machine we wanted to make as well as starting the design we would choose to follow as well as other necessary organizational aids such as a list of materials, initial sources and references etc. Along with the planning of our machine we completed ample research pertaining to the development of our idea and the origins and creation of this ancient machine and principle. Day #3- The third day working on this project was again, aimed primarily towards research and planning the execution and overall functionality of our water dispenser, on this day we were able to compete our plans for our machine and further research the components we would require to successfully complete the assigned task. Day #4- On this fourth day working on the project we were finally able to start to build our Water Dispenser. We experienced a lot of trial and error on this first day truely building the machine, this was good in that we were able to learn from our mistakes and we were forced to get creative and adapt however this was not extremely helpful in terms of allotted time and we quickly realized that this was going to be more than difficult to complete in a reasonable amount of time. Day #5- On this fifth and final day dof building our Holy Water Dispenser we completed the building and construction of our machine and although found it very difficult to piece many elements together and struggled occasionally to improve the functionality of the machine, we were able to use a number of different methodes and materials throughout the process. Description Of Applied Physics: Although there are many different physics components to our dispensing machine, many are beyond our current understanding of physics as we have based this project off of the material we have been able to learn and understand in our physics eleven environment. Regardless of the certain aspects we were unable to understand relative to the workings of this machine, we are able to acknowledge certain forces such as the force of gravity (9.81 N). When we drop the coin into the machine via the above slot, gravity is responsible for pulling it downwards, through the “coin tunnel” and into the coin dish below. This is the force that ultimately triggers the entire system. When the released coin falls through the slot and hits the spoon, the mass of the coin in addition to its velocity it has gained is enough to pull the lever down on the spoon side (the side the coin has hit). Because of this imbalance of the lever in favour of the coin, the opposite (plug/stopper) end is forced upwards which in turn causes the plug/stopper to lift up from its position in the bottle containing the water; this is how the water is able to be released from the machine. In this machine, we used a lever (a device recognized as a simple machine itself). The purpose of such simple machines is and has always been to reduce the amount of force required by an individual to perform a task. One way in which we are able to calculate the force is by simply multiplying the mass with the gravitational field strength (in this case the gravitational field strength is 9.81m/ s^2), this is representative of the push/pull relationship between two objects. When we multiply the mass of the coin dropped (5.70g or 0.00570kg) by the gravitational field strength (9.81m/s^2) we are able to calculate that the force the two objects are exerting upon each other is equal to 0.0559N (Newton’s). Now that the simple machine has served its purpose it has reduced the amount of force one must apply to be capable of completing the same task. Sources/References: https://www.smith.edu/hsc/museum/ancient_inventions/hsc18b.htm https://explorable.com/heron-inventions http://mentalfloss.com/article/68270/worlds-first-vending-machine-dispensed-holy-water http://www.ancientpages.com/2014/11/12/incredible-ancient-machines-invented-hero-alexandriaengineer-far-ahead-time/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_of_Alexandria