Cardboard Gear System

Cardboard Gear System

By Ellen Mkrtchyan

For my experiment, I had to make a gear system. I wanted the gear system to be able to be spun from the source. I planned on making toothed gears. They are all about the same size. I didn't have a plan on the amount of gears, but I made four gears.

For my experiment, I first researched videos on how to make them. I then, cut some gears out of cardboard and painted them. Some of the gears I traced from a magformers kit. The next part of my experiment was to put the system together. After I put the system together, I tried to spin one gear and get them all to spin. I wanted every gear to start moving after the main gear/source was spun.

After I finished making and painting the gears, I tried to spin them from the source, but it got tripped up in the middle. I figured out that the thumbtacks were too small. After realizing that, I decided that I would switch the thumbtacks for toothpicks. Once that change was made, the gears were able to spin,but only for a short amount of time. After I changed the to toothpicks, I had to replace the gears multiple times. The gears weren’t close enough to spin together.

In conclusion, the gears worked, but not for long. I think that they didn’t work because of the way the cardboard brushed against each other. This experiment was accurate because I got the gears to be close enough to spin together. I could improve the experiment by using a different material or making more and accurate gears. The gears that I made weren’t as accurate as they could have been.