Last week, Erik brought back a flyer from school entitled "Calling all Engineers!". It was a project, which Erik had to do at home: he and I had to build a machine using a wedge, pulley, lever, etc. Not as easy as it sounds. What should the machine do? What on earth should we build it with? Erik and I brainstormed different ideas such as a Banana cutter, a coffee maker, etc. But they were either too dangerous or too difficult. Then I noticed that a Cheerios box fits exactly inside a Coco Pops box!!! That gave us the idea for a cereal-pourer.
On one side of the box I cut a triangular hole in each of the boxes, one above the other; the inner triangle has to point up and the outer one point down! "Blast Doors", Erik calls them! On the other side, a wedge would slide in pushing the inner box up and aligning the holes on the other side..! The cereal would then pour down a little shute stuck underneath the hole.
One of the carpenters here made the wedge according to our specifications, I covered the box with aluminium foil and Erik had the idea of sticking stickers of insects over it; which is where the bug-proof idea came from (also, Erik had a cockroach in his cereal one morning only a few weeks ago. Yuck!) Lastly, I fastened a large elastic band over the inner box, so that it would go down when you remove the wedge.
Pretty cool!
Jeremy
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