The Comets had a great tournament at MacArthur Hall yesterday! It was a long day, from 7:45am until 4:30pm and despite some ups and down things went very well overall. After three very well done presentations things started going downhill as the robot didn't really want to perform.
Comet Warriors
The team pulled together, however, and worked through the problems one round at a time. They ended with a tournament-high score of 458, giving them the Robot Performance award. In addition they won first prize for their research project. They'll be off to the provincial championships in Oshawa on Jan. 16th. Congratulations!
We've gotten a lot done since the last post! We've shared our project idea with several experts and gotten some good feedback. Dr. Linton liked the spinning magnet idea and thought it could work. When we asked why nobody was using the ideas we found patents for he said it's probably because they cost too much. Silicon that's 99.9999999% costs $25/kg. Silicon that's 98% pure costs $4/kg. So to be practical a solution needs to cost less than $25 per kilogram of awesome silicon, or less than $4 per kilogram of pretty good silicon. Dr. Loock also liked the idea, and he too wondered about the cost. We'll need to figure out how much ours solution costs to see if it's practical.
Dr Tenney also liked the idea, though silicon wafers aren't his specialty. He did say that we could probably save ourselves a drill and a bunch of magnets by using an induction motor instead. He sent a video of someone who made one with a lego controller and some non-lego pieces. It basically gives the same effect as spinning magnets, but without anything moving. See the video below:
Since Dr. Linton and Dr. Tenney are both named John, the secret word for the week is "John".
We've also made good progress on the robot programming. Olivia spent 6 hours working on it on Sunday. The robot now does the Careers, Valuables, Compost, Windshield, Plastic Bag, Turtle, Truck, and Methane missions for a total of 600 points. We have a few more missions that are close to working and may be able to get almost 800!
We've also made good progress on the t-shirts. They are supposed to arrive today and get printed by Thursday. Let's hope there are no delays.
We've made good progress on the presentation as well. Things we still need are: a song! And practice! We'll need to practice this a lot before the competition and there's very little time left. Who wants to write a song?
We're meeting with Team HiTech (Ella Hsu's team) at Olivia's house after school tomorrow (Weds.). We're hoping to do our presentations for each other, and try out our robots in competition.
We have another expert to speak with on Friday at 11:30. Her name is Dr. Lauren Linton and she's the Deputy Director of the Tufts University Innovation Institute. They focus on turning ideas into products by involving people with a lot of different skill sets, and may have advice for us on how to make our idea better.
We've emailed the tournament schedule to everyone. Please arrive Saturday morning no later than 7:45 at MacArthur Hall (corner of Sir John A MacDonald Blvd. and Union St.)
Can a filter separate
the silicon particles from the silicon carbide particles?
Tried: Coffee filter.
Everything went through.
Tried screen filter: nothing went through.
Olivia looked up particle sizes and found silicon averaged 1 micron,
and silicon carbide averaged 10 microns. But the bigger silicon particles were bigger than the smaller silicon carbide particles. So there was an overlap of about 50% of the silicon with the silicon dioxide. We migh get half of the silicon if we used a filter of 1 micron or less.
Conclusion: Filter will recover 50% of the silicon at best.
Can silicon and silicon carbide be separated by density?
Neshaya did a report on separating silicon and silicon carbide based on density. She found that silicon was less dense than silicon carbide. She also found that there were several liquids with densities between the two, including bromal, bromophorm, and sodium polytungstate. There are a number of patents in patents.google.com that describe separating wire saw slurry based on densities of silicon and silicon carbide. According to Dr. Linton, nobody is using these techniques, so we should see why not.
Can a magnet separate
silicon particles from silicon carbide particles?
Searched Youtube for: "magnet repels conductors"
Found video on aluminum being attracted by magnets, and
glass being repelled.
Found video on water being repelled by a magnet. Repulsion was very small. To eliminate friction, water was placed in a
test tube inserted in styrofoam floating in a tub of water.
Found video on magnetic top floating above a sheet of
copper. Top only floated when it was
spinning. Top had six magnets
alternating north and south poles.
Found a video on spinning magnets being used to sort
aluminum at a recycling center. Spinning
magnets popped aluminum off of a conveyor carrying rubber, plastic, etc. According to the video "Eddy Currents" produce the magnetic force that repels the aluminum. The word for this week is, you guessed it, "Eddy".
Built a spinning magnetic top using a car polisher, tape,
and magnets. Placed it under a plastic
tray with tin foil in it but it didn't really
work.
Tried again with a square of piece of aluminum, and the
aluminum spun.
Tried it on aluminum floating on styrofoam in water, and it
worked.
Checked with saran wrap between the magnets and the aluminum
to make sure the air wasn't spinning the aluminum. Still worked.
Tried with the aluminum removed to make sure the magnets
weren't spinning the styrofoam or the water.
Nothing spun.
Conclusion: Spinning magnets can make a sheet of aluminum
spin.
Questions: Does it work with silicon? Does it work with silicon powder? Does it not work with silicon carbide?
If it works with silicon and not silicon carbide, could it
be used to separate the two? If so, how?
