Triggering mechanism

[JZhang1]

Me and my partner's mission currently have a ball falling into a basket to make the basket fall and pull a pulley up. We're using a cork to keep the basket from falling before the ball falls into it, but that hasn't been very reliable. Any triggering mechanism we think of would also count as a lever, and disqualify the transfer. Any ideas for a triggering mechanism that doesn't count as a lever?

[MaeleeB]

What is your current basket made of?

[torqueburner]

Me and my partner's mission currently have a ball falling into a basket to make the basket fall and pull a pulley up. We're using a cork to keep the basket from falling before the ball falls into it, but that hasn't been very reliable. Any triggering mechanism we think of would also count as a lever, and disqualify the transfer. Any ideas for a triggering mechanism that doesn't count as a lever?

If you make the object being lifted by the pulley heavier, so the the total mass of pulley plus object is approximately twice the mass of the basket, it should stay in place, with a little help from friction. Then the mass of the ball has to be great enough to overcome friction and set the pulley system into motion.

You mention a triggering mechanism counting as a lever. I'm not sure exactly what you have in mind, but if it was indeed a lever, it might just insert a lever between the machine just prior to the ball and the pulley, and therefore count as (previous machine)>lever>pulley, which would potentially count as two transfers, from (previous machine) and from lever, instead of disqualifying the transfer, as you said.

[JZhang1]

What is your current basket made of?

Wood

[JZhang1]

Me and my partner's mission currently have a ball falling into a basket to make the basket fall and pull a pulley up. We're using a cork to keep the basket from falling before the ball falls into it, but that hasn't been very reliable. Any triggering mechanism we think of would also count as a lever, and disqualify the transfer. Any ideas for a triggering mechanism that doesn't count as a lever?

If you make the object being lifted by the pulley heavier, so the the total mass of pulley plus object is approximately twice the mass of the basket, it should stay in place, with a little help from friction. Then the mass of the ball has to be great enough to overcome friction and set the pulley system into motion.

You mention a triggering mechanism counting as a lever. I'm not sure exactly what you have in mind, but if it was indeed a lever, it might just insert a lever between the machine just prior to the ball and the pulley, and therefore count as (previous machine)>lever>pulley, which would potentially count as two transfers, from (previous machine) and from lever, instead of disqualifying the transfer, as you said.

We tried to balance the pulley and basket like that, the what happens is that either there is not enough force to start the next transfer, or it doesn't start at all. As for the lever trigger, we were thinking of a lever that swings down after a tab is pulled from under it, and scrap the ball falling into a basket, however, if we put a lever there, it would disqualify other lever transfers that we have, and/or disqualify another identical transfer. We might try it, but we'd have to scrap a bunch of our device.