Monday, December 1, 2008

Gears and Speed investigation summary

In the project, "Gears and Speed", it had the purpose to find out what hypothesis is correct and how we can apply the hypothesis to the real speed of the robot. There were two hypotheses:
Hypothesis A : speed1/gear ratio1 = speed2/gear ratio2
Hypothesis B : speed1 * gear ratio1 = speed2 * gear ratio2
"A" was directly proportional, which means when one thing increases, the other thing increases as well, and "B" was indirectly proportional, which means when one thing increases, the other thing decreases.
I had experiments with the gear ratio from 16:16 to 20:12 and 12:20, and I tested each of the hypotheses by calculating based on the data from the experiments. As a result, the hypothesis B was correct since its assumed value was apparently quite close to the real one. It does mean that for fast speed, the gear ratio is supposed to decrease, meaning the size of the driven gear is smaller while the driving gear should be bigger. As the gear ratio is less, the speed is faster.


1 comment:

l.clark said...

Detailed and accurate observations on our Gears and Speed investigation...makes sense that lower gear ratios mean more speed.