Week 2 - The Motor

Another delayed report... this time I blame Sze Hann.
Belated report for the 24th of January .

The 2nd session went.. lets say.. a bit off-track, none of us had actually planned on what to do, but we pushed ahead with the idea of creating a housing for our awesome motor. Before we begin:

1. Repay Ms. Pardoe for the clay (I took a massive chunk, my bad ^^)
2. Get Epoxy resin for Mr. Lord (He gave us a brand new pack!)

The first step was to design.. the casing. The first and only plan was to create a container (per say) with a card tube, and fill it with the fuel, and then seal both ends with clay. The fuel would then be compressed into a solid (possible as the ingredients are similar to black powder). Once sealed, a drill will be used to.. drill (da dum tsh!), a hole down the middle, to pass a wire and a fuse (iron wool?) to ignite the fuel. This image should clarify it:

During the session, further research led us to our sealant - Bentonite (wiki link). Once the properties and effects of bentonite were seen on a youtube video, we had to compare the effectiveness, ease and reliability of 3 types sealants (2 of which were reproduced in the lab).

• Bung + Epoxy
• Modelling clay from the art dept. (compressed and let to dry).

Well, that concludes the 2nd session.. which was the session in which I actually created this blog. ^^

- Vish, checking out.

(God that sounds cool)